Denis Farley

PHOTOGRAPHY
02.10–03.06.1994

This recent work by Denis Farley offers a vision of the West Coast that brings together cultural, historical, geopolitical, and aesthetic references. The evolution of Denis Farley’s work has led him to explore his two primary fields of interest: on the one hand, landscape or nature, which offers a view of what could be described as the representation of raw power; and on the other hand, the industrial landscape, which also represents, on another level, a network of geopolitical and socio-economic forces. These two aesthetics have long coexisted and clashed in Farley’s work. The use of the pinhole camera and the camera obscura tent on Vancouver Island (Clayoquot Sound, a clear-cut area of rainforest) and on Mitchell Island in Vancouver (a small island in the center of Vancouver transformed into an industrial park) allows for an objectification of the gaze and an awareness of the observer’s relative position.