Grace Gordon-Collins: THE DRESS

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Grace Gordon-Collins

Grace Gordon-Collins, "THE DRESS," 2017

digital photograph, 18" x 36"

Elissa Cristall Gallery is pleased to present THE DRESS an exhibition of photography and text-based messages by Vancouver artist and architect, Grace Gordon-Collins.

THE DRESS

Grace has long sought out the thematic threads that run through the inner lives of her female subjects and in the past has explored universal issues relative to gender, identity, violence against women and contemporary culture.

Today the wedding dress inhabits the world of popular culture, celebrity, fairy tales and financial excess. The Cinderella meme on steroids.

She writes, "I regard the wedding dress as both an object and a moment in time, a signifier.”

Her wedding dress photograms are ethereal and otherworldly and are interwoven with memory and history. They document the dresses of four generations of Grace's family, creating a bridge between past and present. Interspersed among the photograms and digital photographs hang iPhone-size text messages between a bride to be and her best friend, the last message ominously reading -

"Sat. July 31, 2:00 PM

I just can't go thru with this

Delivered"

As a cultural icon the wedding dress can be both symbol and curse, a study in beauty and dreams, of excess and heartbreak. THE DRESS blurs the boundaries between the real and the unreal, and within each image lays an entire story.

Artist Bio

Grace Gordon-Collins, RCA is known for her award winning multi-disciplinary design practice, encompassing architecture, design and fine art photography. Her approach to all disciplines is highly conceptual and interactive.

"I have always been an observer and a story teller. My work, whether architectural or photographic has a multi-layered narrative quality. I feel the notions of complexity, drama, ambiguity and simplicity are the building blocks in all my creative work."

Grace graduated from the University of Manitoba and went on to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she received her Masters Degree in Architecture. She later completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Emily Carr University majoring in Photography.