Operated by the Calgary Contemporary Arts Society

Faces, Places and Spaces - November 4 to December 18, 1999

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-Introduction
-Appreciation
-L. Chrismas
-A. Nishimura
-H. Palmer
-O. Semchishen
-G. Webber

"The intention of these images is to evoke the small town prairie experience rather than to create a visual catalogue of specific prairie locations."

Artist Statements
Arthur Nishimura

The question is not what you look at, but what you see. - Henry David Thoreau

These photographs have arisen from my continuing interest in the Prairie experience, that is, exploring the visual and associated qualities of experiencing the prairie - being born to, growing up on, developing a history within, and just plain living on the prairie.

The intention of these images is to evoke the small town prairie experience rather than to create a visual catalogue of specific prairie locations. In this regard, and in spite of the fact that photographic images are tightly bound to reality, the evocative, poetic qualities of the image are of primary consideration. As a result, these photographs are untitled, and only carry a caption referencing the direction in which the photographs were taken as well as the approximate time of day.

I have a Walker Evans monograph entitled First and Last, filled with his most memorable photographic images. The photographs are presented as uncaptioned images, with the titles and dates collected as a list at the end of the book. My experience of these images is not dependent at all on the captions or on knowing where Evans took the photographs, nor is my appreciation suddenly intensified upon reading the caption. The inherent richness of the images, and the engaging vision informing each image, are the qualities which capture me.

Similarly, I do not wish for, nor do I need to have any more information than the simple title of Sunday Morning, in appreciating Edward Hopper's painting of a nameless, deserted, sunlit street in some nameless American city. The painted image is enough to evoke the quiet, unhurried anticipation of the leisurely potential of a Sunday morning.

Perhaps through an inductive process, the viewer will develop some notion of the small town prairie experience through this collection of images - the implication of boundless sky, land, and the thin line of the distant horizon, the hand of man marking the passage of seasons on the immensity of the prairie page, the reassuring rationality of vertical on horizontal, and much more.