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Indepth Arts News:
"Peter MacCallum: Larus Delawarensis"
2003-08-30 until 2003-11-02
Oakville Galleries
Oakville, ON,
CA Canada
Peter MacCallum is well-known in the Toronto area for his unglamourous, scrupulous observations of industrial and urban architecture. His documentary studies of the concrete industry, completed over the last few years, show the complex structures of cement plants as sculptural forms in the landscape. In MacCallum’s photographs, these accidental monuments of industry are quietly overwhelming; they have an undeniable presence and an evocative power.
The subject of Peter MacCallum’s exhibition at Oakville Galleries is a series of photographs documenting the Ring-billed Gull, or Larus Delawarensis, a common, familiar, and often ignored bird species. Rather than see the birds as garbage-eating pests, MacCallum prefers to see these largely misunderstood gulls as "athletic, swashbuckling rogues." The artist began the Larus Delawarensis series in his neighbourhood on Augusta Avenue in Toronto, then moved to Nathan Philips Square, and finally moved to the site of a gull colony at the St Marys Cement Plant in Bowmanville, Ontario. This exhibition is a contribution to the social history of the gull which, since the nineteenth century, has been greatly affected by the social history of humans.
These images possess a tender, ludic quality seldom revealed in MacCallum’s work – yet there is nothing sentimental about this series of photographs. These birds aren’t just subjects for MacCallum; they’re characters. MacCallum’s exhilaration with his close observations and disciplined eye colours these creatures with a mixture of wit and wonder. He allows viewers to look – simply look – at gulls with amazing intimacy.
A booklet with a text by Russell Smith will be available at Oakville Galleries.
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