'Inheritance' opens as Blyth Festival Art Gallery's second show of season
BY SCOTT STEPHENSON
“Inheritance”, the latest exhibition at the Blyth Centre for the Arts’ Bainton Gallery through the Blyth Festival Art Gallery, showcases the work of two photographers: Chloé Norman and Ben Dickey. Though “Inheritance” is a dual exhibition that displays each artist’s work separately, it collectively resists being divided into two halves. Instead, each artist becomes a lens through which the other is seen, creating an internal conversation in the viewer that shifts as they travel through the exhibition.
Step through one of the doors and encounter Norman’s work first, but enter from the other and Dickey’s photographs are your introduction. It is a subtle curatorial decision, but one that quietly reshapes the experience. The longer one spends with “Inheritance”, the more the mind insists on making connections between disparate pieces created by artists working independently. From one direction, a momentary moth captured by Dickey’s camera sparks a conversation with Norman’s formidable flower photo. Or is the moth merely the flower’s dream? To some, Norman’s returning black curtain echoes Dickey’s vast expanse of sky. The body gives way to the landscape, until neither feels entirely separate from the other.
These internal conversations between works multiply exponentially the longer one spends in the space, impossible to erase. Which is fitting, because the works contained in “Inheritance” engage with the weight of the things we carry with us through life, whether we choose them or not.
In turning her camera towards her own life, Norman’s photographs dance with the idea of bodily autonomy, intimacy and ownership. She captures moments that make a shocking announcement: living things are prone to change. At the reception, Norman’s son took great joy in recognizing himself in one of the photos, utterly unbothered that he has changed since it was taken.
Dickey’s photographs may appear to look outward - at landscapes, at celestial bodies, at insects. But all these things lead right back to the one behind the camera - his sense of unease, his ideas of mortality, his grief, the starkness of the joy he encounters in the world.
While both artists have selected the camera as their creative weapon of choice, their approaches to the art of photography couldn’t be more different. Norman’s digital work embraces performance, touch and physical presence, extending beyond the photographic print through the use of fabric and lights. Dickey, meanwhile, experiments with photography as a physical object. He favours antique cameras and the fallibility of film. Traditional large-format camera work hangs alongside photographs printed on delicate Japanese paper and intentionally degraded prints.
Gallery President Carl Stevenson believes this exhibit reflects his organization’s core philosophy. “I’m sure there are pieces hanging on these walls right now that will sell, but that’s never been our focus,” he said when he addressed the crowd. “I think of us as a storytelling gallery - we always try to assist the wonderful artists we work with to bring out the stories they’re trying to tell. And with two people, it’s twice as interesting and exciting.”
That storytelling is precisely what makes this dual exhibition so compelling. Depending on which door you choose, you may begin with the body or the landscape, with family or environment, with hope or grief. But before long, the two artists begin finishing each other's sentences.
“Inheritance”, featuring work by Chloé Norman and Ben Dickey, runs until Aug. 8.