untitled #1

(circa 1995/1996): This is work I produced way back when I was finishing my Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Ottawa. PhotoShop was still quite new (I might have been working with version 3). With my trusty Nikon F3 and FM2 film cameras, I walked the streets shooting up hydro and light posts in and around Centretown (Ottawa). The beauty and potential of all the textures, patterns and colours struck me, and I decided to make my own work out of it.

After developing the film, I would carefully examine the images, reading all the text in the posters, as well as other visual signals, before applying the appropriate PhotoShop filters, and other techniques and visual enhancements before writing the appropriate text underneath. I'm not sure exactly how it was that the text flowed so readily, but flow it did and my fellow art students were quite complementary. It's rather funny that I remember all this.

After I finished making all the images, I walked back to the posts and taped my work up. As much as I could, I'd try placing my images next to the items I photographed, but it didn't always work out that way as the City routinely removed posters then, as it does now. My own work didn't last very long either, as expected.

I'm calling this "untitled #1" even though I can't remember what number I gave it. I do know that almost all my work featured the title "untitled," as that was a time I was commenting on the many works I was studying that were called "untitled." After a long, long time, I've finally decided to display it again; just don't tell the City!