Kotama Bouabane
Outdated, Updated, Renovated

October 16–November 15, 2014
Opening: Thursday, October 16th, 7–10pm

A new body of photographic and installation works by Kotama Bouabane.

Outdated, Updated, Renovated takes the staging of idealistic trade show sets and exposes the awkward mechanics behind displays. Images are re-composed, fragmented and collaged to make images within images. The ordinary is shown in the same frame as the postcard imagery, cropped to suggest a strange narrative that exists outside of the constructed scene. 

The installation created on a shelf plays off of the photographs in physical space. Images combined with objects are rearranged, assembled and disassembled to create a similar illusion that occurs within the photos themselves. Materials being used both reflect and obscure how the images are interpreted through shifting and re-configuring the pictorial space. Backgrounds merge into foregrounds in a continuous cycle that moves static images into ones that are unsettled and elusive.

Kotama Bouabane has an MFA in Studio Arts, Photography from Concordia University, Montreal and a AOCAD from OCAD. His work has been exhibited in many galleries including Parisian Laundry (Montreal), Jen Bekman (New York) and Gallery TPW (Toronto). He has received awards and grants and most recently in 2010 the Roloff Beny Foundation Fellowship in Photography. He lives and works in Toronto.

The artist wishes to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council.