29.Artist appreciation

Amy Friend

There is a saying that taking a picture of a person is to inject part of its soul into the photo, and Amy Friend's work gives people such feeling.

He collects old photos from his own home, online stores, and antique markets, etc., and punches them with small holes to give these old objects a brand new life.

The light passes through the holes of the photos to become flashing memories, stardust and poems, as if traveling through time and space, resonating deep in the soul of everyone who watches the photos.

Amy Friend said:I am not specifically concerned with capturing a “concrete” reality in my photographs. I aim to use photography as a medium that explores the relationship between what is visible and non-visible. I have continued to work on the Dare alla Luce series over a period of time; initially responding to a collection of vintage photographs, retrieved from a variety of sources. Through hand-manipulated interventions I alter and subsequently re-photograph the images “re-making” photographs that oscillate between what is present and absent. I aim to comment on the fragile quality of the photographic object but also on the fragility of our lives, our history. All are lost so easily. By employing the tools of photography, I “re-use” light, allowing it to shine through the holes. In a playful and yet, literal manner, I return the subjects of the photographs back to the light, while simultaneously bringing them forward. The light becomes a presence and I use it metaphorically allowing for new readings, sometimes through heavy-handed applications and at other times delicately. The images are permanently altered; they are lost and reborn, hence the title, Dare alla Luce, an Italian term meaning, “to bring to the light” in reference to birth. The title of each piece is significant; some titles were taken directly from the notations found written on the photographs, yet those without any indication of provenance were titled to reference the nuances and technical processes of photographic production as a medium while commenting on the manner in which we interact with these images.

http://www.amyfriend.ca/#/dare-alla-luce/