Jessica Thalmann G44: Facelift – Cut and Fold Techniques for Portraits
Register for this Gallery 44 workshop here.
$100 / $90 (G44 members)
Artist Jessica Thalmann will teach participants about the creative potential of manipulating photographs of portraits and the human figure using alternative photographic practices
This workshop is suitable for those who wish to explore the boundaries between photography, collage and sculpture. Thalmann will present a lecture on her work and others, including Marlo Pascual, John Stezaker, Aldo Tolino, Julie Cockburn, Lucas Samaras, etc. Participants will create a small artwork using their imagery hands-on techniques, including paper-folding, cutting, weaving, excising and lifting, among other destructive methods.. The class will culminate in a final critique where participants will learn to examine the work of their peers.
Participants should bring five to ten photographs that they would like to work with—self-portraits, portraits, or images dealing with the human figure or body are encouraged. They can be the artist’s own or found images including digital print outs, darkroom prints or magazine cutouts.
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).