Andrew Wright
Encyclopedia
Andrew Wright is a Canadian multimedia
artist from Ottawa, Ontario. He is best known for his work with video
and large-scale photography
. He holds a specialist degree in Art and Art History from the University of Toronto
(1994) and a Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Windsor
(1997). Since then, he has lived and worked as a visual artist in Waterloo, Ontario
and now Ottawa, Ontario.
Andrew Wright’s work is described as multi-tiered inquiries into the nature of perception, photographic structures and technologies, and the ways we relate to an essentially mediated and primarily visual world. To this end, he has produced sculpture, film, installation, outdoor works and prints that probe phenomena, narrative, antique and contemporary technologies.
One of Wright's most well known work is Blind Man's Bluff, a video installation piece that has been exhibited in galleries across Canada. In this piece, the viewer watches and listens to the describer (played by actor Alan Sapp), a man who is watching and describing one of Boris Karloff
's last films titled, Blind Man's Bluff. The viewer does not see the film itself and must piece together the plot from the describer's summary along with the film's script, projected as sub-titles. In his catalogue essay, The Artful Doubter, Robert Enright suggests that, "What is remarkable is how much wringing Wright is able to effect. He uses throughout his script a series of fictional devices that extend, amplify, and layer the filmic narrative. There are numerous occasions where he adds flourishes that force us to consider the characters in the film in radically different ways than how they first appear." Blind Man's Bluff has been shown in the Peak Gallery in Toronto (2003), Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (2004), Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (2004), Art Gallery of Calgary (2004), and most recently in the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario (2007).
Many of Wright's pieces have explored the nature of perception, photographic structures and technologies. His work, Home and Garden (Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Ontario
2002) presented the Gairloch Gardens in Oakville using three different photographic means: an antique camera lucida, a modern still camera and a video camera. The results, suggested by Elaine Hujer (Hamilton Spectator, 2003), are "so profoundly distinctive that viewers may be inspired to review, reinvestigate and reinterpret their own ideas about Oakville's stately lakeside manor."
Wright has also created several large-scale photographs by converting a large gallery space and his studio into a giant pin-hole camera. With reference to Wright's Skies piece, Kevin Temple (Now
, 2004) suggests that this work, "is a meditation on modern photographic technology that's able to remove all traces of the process from the picture. Now automated cameras can eliminate the photographer entirely. By controlling his own process – in effect, avoiding its mechanization – Wright draws attention to the act of mediated representation." These themes were also explored in In Camera: The View from Here (Gallery 101, Ottawa, 2000), View of 4th St. West, North Vancouver, using Presentation House Gallery as Camera Obscura (Presentation House Gallery, 2004) and London Camera Obscura (Museum London, 2007).
Wright’s innovative new body of work entitled CORONAE (2011) recently won the inaugural BMW Exhibition Prize during Scotiabank's Contact Photography festival in Toronto. The exhibition continues Wright's investigation into photographic technologies by interrogating how they depict environments and the world around us. This series of large-scale works contributes to contemporary discourses on cameraless photography, challenging conventional understandings about materials, procedures, and functions. “Andrew Wright very skillfully challenges the position and perspective of the viewer, who becomes the figure within the ground of his otherworldly images,” said David Liss, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) and jury member. “Contemplative and darkly beautiful, Wright’s work is about light—the mechanics and the essence of photography—and can refer metaphorically to illumination, inspiration and the origin of the cosmos.”
Wright is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Art at the University of Ottawa. He has also taught extensively at numerous colleges and universities in Canada. Wright is the founding Artistic Director for Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area (CAFKA).
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
artist from Ottawa, Ontario. He is best known for his work with video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
and large-scale photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
. He holds a specialist degree in Art and Art History from the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
(1994) and a Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Windsor
University of Windsor
The University of Windsor is a public comprehensive and research university in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's southernmost university. It has a student population of approximately 15,000 full-time and part-time undergraduate students and over 1000 graduate students...
(1997). Since then, he has lived and worked as a visual artist in Waterloo, Ontario
Waterloo, Ontario
Waterloo is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada. It is the smallest of the three cities in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, and is adjacent to the city of Kitchener....
and now Ottawa, Ontario.
Andrew Wright’s work is described as multi-tiered inquiries into the nature of perception, photographic structures and technologies, and the ways we relate to an essentially mediated and primarily visual world. To this end, he has produced sculpture, film, installation, outdoor works and prints that probe phenomena, narrative, antique and contemporary technologies.
One of Wright's most well known work is Blind Man's Bluff, a video installation piece that has been exhibited in galleries across Canada. In this piece, the viewer watches and listens to the describer (played by actor Alan Sapp), a man who is watching and describing one of Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
's last films titled, Blind Man's Bluff. The viewer does not see the film itself and must piece together the plot from the describer's summary along with the film's script, projected as sub-titles. In his catalogue essay, The Artful Doubter, Robert Enright suggests that, "What is remarkable is how much wringing Wright is able to effect. He uses throughout his script a series of fictional devices that extend, amplify, and layer the filmic narrative. There are numerous occasions where he adds flourishes that force us to consider the characters in the film in radically different ways than how they first appear." Blind Man's Bluff has been shown in the Peak Gallery in Toronto (2003), Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (2004), Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba (2004), Art Gallery of Calgary (2004), and most recently in the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario (2007).
Many of Wright's pieces have explored the nature of perception, photographic structures and technologies. His work, Home and Garden (Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Ontario
Oakville, Ontario
Oakville is a town in Halton Region, on Lake Ontario in Southern Ontario, Canada, and is part of the Greater Toronto Area. As of the 2006 census the population was 165,613.-History:In 1793, Dundas Street was surveyed for a military road...
2002) presented the Gairloch Gardens in Oakville using three different photographic means: an antique camera lucida, a modern still camera and a video camera. The results, suggested by Elaine Hujer (Hamilton Spectator, 2003), are "so profoundly distinctive that viewers may be inspired to review, reinvestigate and reinterpret their own ideas about Oakville's stately lakeside manor."
Wright has also created several large-scale photographs by converting a large gallery space and his studio into a giant pin-hole camera. With reference to Wright's Skies piece, Kevin Temple (Now
NOW (magazine)
Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
, 2004) suggests that this work, "is a meditation on modern photographic technology that's able to remove all traces of the process from the picture. Now automated cameras can eliminate the photographer entirely. By controlling his own process – in effect, avoiding its mechanization – Wright draws attention to the act of mediated representation." These themes were also explored in In Camera: The View from Here (Gallery 101, Ottawa, 2000), View of 4th St. West, North Vancouver, using Presentation House Gallery as Camera Obscura (Presentation House Gallery, 2004) and London Camera Obscura (Museum London, 2007).
Wright’s innovative new body of work entitled CORONAE (2011) recently won the inaugural BMW Exhibition Prize during Scotiabank's Contact Photography festival in Toronto. The exhibition continues Wright's investigation into photographic technologies by interrogating how they depict environments and the world around us. This series of large-scale works contributes to contemporary discourses on cameraless photography, challenging conventional understandings about materials, procedures, and functions. “Andrew Wright very skillfully challenges the position and perspective of the viewer, who becomes the figure within the ground of his otherworldly images,” said David Liss, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA) and jury member. “Contemplative and darkly beautiful, Wright’s work is about light—the mechanics and the essence of photography—and can refer metaphorically to illumination, inspiration and the origin of the cosmos.”
Wright is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Visual Art at the University of Ottawa. He has also taught extensively at numerous colleges and universities in Canada. Wright is the founding Artistic Director for Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area (CAFKA).
Honours
- Winner of the inaugural BMW Prize in Photography, 2011
- Nominated for the Sobey Art AwardSobey Art AwardThe Sobey Art Award is Canada's largest prize for young Canadian artists. It is named after Canadian businessperson and art collector Frank H. Sobey, who established The Sobey Art Foundation...
(2003, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011), Semi-Finalist for the Sobey Art AwardSobey Art AwardThe Sobey Art Award is Canada's largest prize for young Canadian artists. It is named after Canadian businessperson and art collector Frank H. Sobey, who established The Sobey Art Foundation...
(2007) - Nominated for the Yosuf Karsh Award in Photography, 2010
- Leaders Opportunity Fund, Canada Foundation for Innovation, 2010
- Ontario Volunteer Award, Ontario Awards Secretariat, 2004
- OAAG (Ontario Association of Art Galleries) Award, Multi-Media, for the publication Blind Man’s Bluff: 2006
- CFAP (Canadian Forces Artist Program) participant, 2005
- Winner of the Ernst & YoungErnst & YoungErnst & Young is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers ....
Great Canadian Printmaking Competition (2001)
Selected bibliography
- Mark Cheetham, Water's Edge, Border Crossings Magazine (Canada) (Issue #103, Fall 2007)
- Robert Reid, The Wright Stuff, The Record (Waterloo Region)The Record (Waterloo Region)The Waterloo Region Record is the daily newspaper covering Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada, including the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, as well as the surrounding area...
(May 19, 2007) - Gary Michael Dault, Floating Around, Looking at Things, The Globe and MailThe Globe and MailThe Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
(April 24, 2004) - Kevin Temple, No-Tricks Photography, Now MagazineNOW (magazine)Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
(April 8, 2004) - Gary Michael Dault, A Movie, An Experience, At One Remove, The Globe and MailThe Globe and MailThe Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
(June 14, 2003) - Robert Reid, Video Sheds Funky New Light on Blind Man's Bluff, The Record (Waterloo Region)The Record (Waterloo Region)The Waterloo Region Record is the daily newspaper covering Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada, including the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, as well as the surrounding area...
, (May 24, 2003) - Thomas Hirschmann, Sensory Deception: Two shows play tricks with sight and sound, Now MagazineNOW (magazine)Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
(June 12, 2003) - Elaine Hujer, A Garden of Illuminated Delights, Hamilton Spectator (January 11, 2003)