Barbara Strigel

Artist Statement

In the Faraway Near

In this series of images, figures from my street photography files are positioned in space that has been abstracted through a collage process. The images explore the notion of space and distance as a construct. We locate ourselves by the way we perceive the world, navigating our interior lives by telling stories, measuring the past against the present and our need for containment against our desire to explore. Our lives are lived in parallel, in a balance of separation and connection.

These hand cut collages are assembled from scanned analogue collages, printed digital collages and photographic fragments of figures and pieces of the built environment. Some silk screen elements unify the surface. Each image is an improvisation and one of a kind although sometimes I create variations of a certain combinations of background and figure. Both collage and street photography offer an open-endedness that allows me to explore the unknown, and in the words of Rebecca Solnit- to make the unknown real, to bring the faraway near.

Barbara Strigel | Vancouver, British Columbia

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