June 7 – July 20, 2013
Scanography of award winning photographer Janet Dwyer
The exhibition opening at the Kootenay Gallery of Art on Friday, June 7 will be the large format scanography of award winning photographer Janet Dwyer from Salt Spring Island. Her unique use of a flatbed scanner’s myopic lens and light source is an extension of the traditional photographic tools and processes that she has used throughout her career. As a professional photographer, Dwyer specializes in photographing works of art for artists, galleries and museums that require high resolution images. The progression to the use of a scanner allowed her to explore her admitted fascination with detail. Utilizing the scanner as a camera opened a whole new realm of possibilities resulting in images of objects often too small to be seen by the naked eye. Her subjects are found in the flora and fauna that thrive outside her studio door. Animal and plant materials are combined to create stories she sees as metaphors for people’s emotions and interactions. The objects are not always inanimate. She tells the story of placing a nest of three hundred spiderlings on the scanner along with a flower. She was able to record their movements in detail as they covered the flower and glass with webbing. The resulting image in a vary large scale format will be included in the exhibition.
Dwyer has worked as a professional photographer for the past 25 years, has taught photography workshops and instructed at colleges and universities across Canada and has won many international awards. This powerful exhibition will be showing at the Kootenay Gallery until July 20th. Janet Dwyer will be in attendance at the opening reception on June 7th at 7:00. The Gallery is now open Tuesday to Saturday from 10-5pm. Visit us on facebook.