Virginia Mak: Small Moments

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Virginia Mak, "Small Moments 01, Ed./10," 2015

c-print,47" x 47"

Artist Reception: Saturday, February 4, 2017, from 2 - 4 PM.

Newzones is pleased to announce "Small Moments", a solo show by Virginia Mak.

In this new series, Virginia Mak works to conjure from ordinary everyday experience a hidden sense of all that is extraordinary in just being. Each image is an instant that is free of ornament, implicit of his or her story, with their cracking surfaces about to burst and slip into the future.

Pushing photography beyond traditional limits, Mak explores the visual possibilities of the medium. Known for its soft focus and minimized light values, her work disrupts the boundary between painting and photography.

“I am drawn instinctively to moments, the way parcels of time expand and contract in our memory, conjuring from ordinary experience a hidden sense of all that is extraordinary in the world. This photographic series points to small moments – small in the sense of intimate. One can also consider this series as a kind of slow-motion depiction: of people, of place, of postures, of colours and shapes, of immediacy, of ways of occupying space.”

The images range from a lyric fragment (a woman resting her head on a sofa) to extended, rolling meditations (a man’s hand touching the bark of a tree). What unifies them is a certain tension – the need to push forward is meeting the need to hold still.

Mak was born in Hong Kong. After graduating with a Philosophy Degree from the University of Calgary, she went on to study Photography at the Ontario College of Art. She is a recipient of project, exhibition and travel grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Her work has been written about in the Calgary Herald, the Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun and the Toronto Star, to name a few. Mak's photographs can be found in public and private collections in North America and Asia.