Nothing to be Done

Absurdist tilt of Jonah Samson’s curious photo-based works suit pandemic times.

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I cannot lock down. I will lock down.

It’s easy to imagine scenes from our lives under COVID-19 scripted by Samuel Beckett. Jonah Samson, a self-taught artist and physician based in Cape Breton, N.S., completed his latest of body of work during the pandemic with the Irish playwright in mind. 

His exhibition, Nothing to be Done, on view until Feb. 5 at Macaulay & Co. Fine Arts in Vancouver, is an attractive and thoughtful multi-layered examination of place, absurdity, historical nature photography, the joys of repetitive work and the difficulties of language in reckoning with human existence. All of it is connected to a sense of being both slightly in and slightly out of time.

The exhibition’s title is the first spoken line in Beckett’s best-known play, Waiting for Godot, a dialogue between Estragon and Vladimir as they wait for the titular Godot, who never turns up. The titles of many works in the show are also derived from Beckett. 

Further inspiration comes from 19th-century British botanist Anna Atkins, credited with creating the first photo-illustration book, composed of cyanotypes – a camera-less photo technique – of marine plants gathered near her home. Made by placing objects onto chemically treated paper and exposing them to sunlight, cyanotypes are negative images reminiscent of Delftware or blueprints.

The show includes four large hanging textile pieces that resemble patchwork quilts, collectively titled Shelter in Place. Indigo-dyed cyanotypes on antique linens, they are a devotional, almost romantic, gesture in the face of the pandemic. Truly gorgeous, they evoke comfort, history and place and are rewarding to examine both up close and at a distance.

Two of them feature ocean vegetation, including kelp, while the pair on the opposite wall use more varied plant species gathered over the seasons near Samson’s coastal home. Subtle textural differences in the linens yield either sharper or more diffuse outlines of the plants, while differing exposure times alter their hues. 

It’s an imprecise process that requires patience, so the seeming time distortions under lockdown seem well suited to the task. Ultimately, the works are shroud-like markers of impermanence laden with the ghostly outlines of organic matter that no longer exists. Is Shelter in Place thematically consistent with Beckett’s preoccupations? Perhaps less obviously so than the other works on display.

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Jonah Samson, “All that Fall,” 2021

Jonah Samson, “All that Fall,” 2021

55 vintage silver gelatin photos, 65″ x 80″ (courtesy Macaulay & Co. Fine Art, Vancouver; photo by Barb Choit)

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Jonah Samson, “Breath,” 2021

Jonah Samson, “Breath,” 2021

24 vintage silver gelatin photos, 33″ x 41.5″ each (courtesy Macaulay & Co. Fine Art, Vancouver; photo by Barb Choit)

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Jonah Samson, “Breath,” (detail), 2021

Jonah Samson, “Breath,” (detail), 2021

24 vintage silver gelatin photos, 33″ x 41.5″ each (photo by Mark Mushet)

These include All That Fall, a selection of tightly sequenced, vertically mounted vintage black-and-white photos of track and field athletes, mid-stunt, inverted so they appear upside down or at some point in between. The titular Beckett radio play is not about sports, so this piece mostly reads as a witty visual riff on the title.

Another photo sequence, Breath, consists of two framed sets of vintage black-and-white prints of swimmers in mid-breath. It is named for a 30-second play by Beckett that consists largely of someone breathing in and out. In the context of COVID-19, these images morph to elicit a sense of struggle and distress, something close to us in the present moment. While formally interesting, its success depends on its proximity to the pandemic and victims’ desperate struggle for air in the brief window between breathing … and not.

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Jonah Samson, “All that Fall,” 2021

Jonah Samson, “All that Fall,” 2021

cyanotype and natural indigo on antique linen, hardcover book, 10″ x 13.5″ (courtesy Macaulay & Co. Fine Art, Vancouver; photo by Barb Choit)

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Jonah Samson, “Breath,” 2021

Jonah Samson, “Breath,” 2021

cyanotype and natural indigo on antique linen, hardcover book, 11″ x 14.5″ (courtesy Macaulay & Co. Fine Art, Vancouver; photo by Barb Choit)

Then there are Samson’s artist books. They are almost fetish objects, individually hand-crafted using Japanese kozo paper. The covers and end papers are cyanotypes while the interiors feature vintage photos he sourced from eBay and thrift stores. 

All That Fall again features images of people “falling,” each paired with puzzling and seemingly random images of people in inexplicable poses or situations, the most memorable showing a woman apparently pulling a snake through her mouth and out her nose. Breath again includes images of the swimmers, but also unique solarized silver gelatin photos of people gasping. One can’t help but marvel at what a crazed species we are – and how we search for patterns. Here, Samson relentlessly thwarts our desire for order by offering up the ineffable – much like life.

The books are exquisitely crafted and bound one-offs, curious and beautiful objects that are equal parts romantic gesture and unfathomable devotion to something words cannot describe. 

To return to Waiting for Godot: 

Estragon: “We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?”

Vladimir: “Yes, yes, we’re magicians.” ■  

Jonah Samson, Nothing to be Done, at Macaulay & Co. Fine Arts in Vancouver from Dec. 11, 2021, to Feb. 5, 2022.

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