LAUREL JOHANNESSON: Hypnos

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Laurel Johannesson, "The Oblivion Seekers 7," 2017

digital print on aluminum with automotive clear coat, 42" x 67.5" x 1.5"

Opening Reception Thursday, February 2nd from 5 to 8 pm. Artist in Attendance.

An ongoing interest in temporality has led Laurel to explore the concept of oblivion or forgetfulness. In Greek mythology Lethe was one of the five rivers of the underworld. Also known as the river of unmindfulness, the Lethe flowed around the cave of Hypnos and through the underworld, where all those who drank from it experienced forgetfulness. In Laurel’s most recent work, she has moved from underwater to above water to depict the expanse of the sea in relationship to land or horizon, and human or bird. The underlying theme is that of instances of being in a state of precarious limbo. Laurel refers to her human and avian subjects as The Oblivion Seekers and they are frequently depicted between freedom (flight) and safety (land) with the turbulent sea the uncertain suspension that they must navigate between the two. They occupy a kind of limbo space. It is this in-between space of protracted temporality that Laurel is interested in revealing. She also uses light to convey a sense of duration of time or perhaps timelessness. In some of the images and video, the time of day is unidentifiable …fluctuating between sunlight and moonlight …stars in the sky and sun on the waves. Spatial references are also manipulated ...with sky becoming sea ...and sea becoming sky. The Oblivion Seekers are searching for a space where time is suspended, where they can hover in limbo, and temporarily push memory and knowing into oblivion. In this exhibition Laurel Johannesson takes us into the temporal world of The Oblivion Seekers with her photographic images and debuts a hypnotic new moving image work.

Laurel Johannesson studied at the University of Calgary, the University of Saskatchewan, and the Royal College of Art in London. Her print, photographic, interactive, and moving image artworks have been exhibited extensively in Italy, Greece, England, France, India, Iceland, Portugal, Argentina, Germany, Japan, Chile, Taiwan, the United States, and Canada. Included in many public and private collections, Laurel was recently honoured to have her work collected by the Department of Foreign Affairs for one of their Canadian embassies abroad. Laurel has twice been a visiting artist and scholar at the American Academy in Rome, and an invited artist in residence at institutions in Iceland, Greece, and the South of France. She is a fellow of the Bau Institute [Italy] and has had the rare opportunity to conduct some of her research at the Vatican Library. Receiving an Alberta Foundation for the Arts project grant in 2016, she spent an extended period of time in Greece presenting her work as well as working on the Hypnos project. Her research in the area of temporality, the moving image, interactivity, and generative art has been presented at conferences in Rome, Florence, Milan, the University of Greenwich, London, UK and the University of California – Los Angeles. Laurel is a professor in the School of Visual Arts at the Alberta College of Art + Design.

Part of Exposure Photography Festival