Exhibition dates: 23rd May – 3rd July, 2009
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Scott McFarland
‘Fallen Oak Tree’
2008
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Scott McFarland
‘The Admiral’s House as seen from the Upper Garden at Fenton House’
2006
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“Regen Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Canadian artist Scott McFarland. This exhibition will feature new photographs including 3 large panorama works, smaller works from the “Hampstead” series, and introduce the new “Niagara” series.
Scott McFarland’s photography reconsiders the traditional concept of a photograph as the depiction of a single captured moment in time. Through digital means he is able to manipulate composition, color, light, space, shape, and form. McFarland’s photographs combine multiple negatives to represent simultaneous temporalities and interweave selected elements into a cohesive whole. Several different moments are packed into what appears to be one densely constructed instant. The photographs are meticulously crafted illusions created within the formal language of documentary photography.
McFarland’s consideration of photography and the built picture was brought about by the artist’s own understanding of the artificial “nature” found in built environments such as gardens and zoos. Taking the relationship of the constructed space/constructed image one step further, McFarland has photographed a modernist architectural landmark: the Berthold Lubetkin designed penguin pool at the London zoo. Through two very distinct works, McFarland investigates the elliptical structure of the famous penguin pool vis-à-vis the elliptical/arcing motion of his camera rotating on a tripod. One photograph is an objective color rendering where the camera has been left level while rotating; the other is a larger black and white version where the camera arcs along a non-level plane distorting and altering the curve of the structure from right to left.
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Scott McFarland
‘Gorse and Broom, West Heath, Hampstead’
2006
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Scott McFarland
‘Inspecting, Allan O’connor Searches for Botrytis cinerea’
2003
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Scott McFarland
‘Boathouse with Moonlight’
2002
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The new square format photographs from McFarland’s “Niagara” series have a rough unfinished quality unlike any photographs he has taken to date. These softer focus images with odd shifts in light and glare are location studies for the large panorama ‘A Horse Drawn Hearse, Queens Royal Tours, 174 Anne, Niagara on the Lake, Ontario’ (2009). This work depicts an old carriage business and its surroundings during the dead of Canadian winter. In this visually captivating work, a black funeral carriage contrasts against the white snow. The acreage, surrounded by newer suburban homes, evokes the question of how long can this structure resist the modern urban pressures it faces. These straight photographs presented alongside his precise digitally mastered compositions illustrate how the photographic process and the history of art and photography have always informed McFarland’s work.
“Over the last decade, Scott McFarland has produced bodies of work that engage with different aspects of photography … McFarland’s approach is both descriptive and metaphoric … The images, rich in cultural significance, express the complementary workings of conceptual and aesthetic factors all the while holding various characteristics of art and photography in ambiguous relation.”
Andrea Kunard. Scott McFarland: A Cultivated View, published by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2009, p. 12.
Text from the Regen Projects press release
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Scott McFarland
‘Empire’
2005
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Scott McFarland
‘The Granite Bowl in the Berlin Lust Garden’
2006
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Scott McFarland
‘View of Vale of Health, looking towards Hampstead’
2007
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Regen Projects
633 North Almont Drive, Los Angeles
Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10 – 6pm
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