Jessica Thalmann an endless, formless ruin
Jessica Thalmann closely observes our built environments, photographing and reconfiguring them into sculptural forms that return our attention to surfaces and textures, as well as the social and political histories, to which we’ve become inured. Her eyes roam freely when taking pictures, but the real work begins when she manipulates the prints by hand. For Thalmann, a photograph contains both a promise and a trap, just like the cities she re-envisions in her work.
Curated by Bill Clarke
Jessica Thalmann holds a Master of Fine Arts in Advanced Photographic Studies from ICP-Bard College and a BFA in Visual Arts from York University. Thalmann likes to mess with photography, to test its limits. Whether bending, tearing, tessellating or folding, she coaxes images of structural solidity (she has an abiding interest in brutalist architecture) to accommodate dimensional interventions to their representative, utopian angularity. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Aperture Foundation, International Centre for Photography, and Humble Arts Foundation (New York); VIVO Media Arts Centre (Vancouver); Varley Art Gallery of Markham (Markham); Art Gallery of Mississauga and Blackwood Gallery at UTM (Mississauga); Museum of Contemporary Art, Harbourfront Centre, and Gallery TPW (Toronto).