Jake Kimble Grow Up #4
Artist Jake Kimble, a Chipewyan (Dëne Sųłıné) from Treaty 8 Territory in the Northwest Territories, combines humour and pathos in reflective images often featuring the artist engaged in acts of self-repair. Presented as a billboard on Shaw Street, Kimble’s elusive, abstract combination of image and text explores concepts of birth and being born, and hints at questions of what comes next, without offering any definitive answers.
Playing on the trope of the inspirational poster, Kimble’s series Grow Up posits alternative, sometimes ambiguous or comical, sometimes foreboding statements reflecting the challenges of contemporary life and the many future unknowns looming over young people today. Encompassing a queer aesthetics, the works embrace the imperfect and the vulnerable, functioning as an antidote to mass-marketed homogenizing messages of flawlessness, exclusionary beauty and the attainment of perfection.
Addressing them directly, Grow Up #4 (2022) confronts the viewer with their preconceived notions of who deserves happiness, forcing them to consider their own position in relation to the statement, and to decipher what the sensuous image—a glistening hand hovering over a golden, vertical puddle visually evoking both a cracked egg and sticky, spilt honey—might imply, with its nebulous promise of fortune-telling.
This presentation precedes the artist’s upcoming Core Outdoor Installation of another work in this series, to be presented as a large photographic banner at 460 King Street West, as part of the CONTACT Festival in May 2023.
Presented by CONTACT in partnership with Capture Photography Festival and Critical Distance
Jake Kimble is a photo-based Chipewyan (Dënesųłıné) artist from Treaty 8 Territory who currently lives and works on the stolen territory of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Most recently he attained a BFA in Photography from Emily Carr University of Art + Design while also holding a Degree in Acting from Vancouver Film School. Kimble’s practice mainly revolves around acts of self-care, self-repair, and gender-based ideological refusal. By doing so with a sense of humour, Kimble allows the audience to exhale, unclench, and even chuckle in spaces where laughter is often lost. Kimble’s work was featured on the King and Shaw Street billboards for the 2023 Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.