Construct

Construct (noun / kän,strəkt ) is a series of interventions on physical photographic prints. Through shredding, cutting, tearing, folding, and other acts, existing printed works are rearranged and reconfigured into sculptural forms. These new objects are then re-shot and the journey from taking to making and back to taking, allows the viewer to re-evaluate the conventional language of photography. Memory, nostalgia, documentation and other established tropes of the medium become secondary to the form and object, opening a dialogue about what images can be and what they can mean.

Shepherd’s artistic practice to date has focused on large-scale photographic prints. Consistently underpinning that work has been an overriding interest and affection for the painting and sculpture of the Geometric Abstractionists of the 1960s and the Contemporary and Conceptual artist of today and the intervening 50 years. Construct is a conscious effort by Shepherd to move from “taking” pictures to “making” pictures within this frame of reference. The work in this series uses either existing artist proofs from the artist’s studio or newly photographed pieces specifically taken and printed to work with the new processes of manipulation. These processes deliberately avoid technology, and opt instead for mundane and repetitive physical actions. This manual manipulation also adds an archaic, durational aspect to the work that is simultaneously uncomfortable and meditative.

Construct was exhibited at Bau-Xi Galleries in Vancouver and Toronto in 2016.