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Artist Exhibitions:
Solo Exhibitions:
2009 Tim Porter: Still Lives,
La Petite Mort Gallery, Ottawa
2001 Paradise: The Gardens of
Tokyo, International House of
Japan
1998 Language, The Polaroid
Gallery, Tokyo
1980 Night Waves, Canon
Gallery, Tokyo Nagoya,
Hiroshima, Osaka
1978 DMZ, Nikon Gallery,
Tokyo
1977 A Certain Slant t of
Light, Photographers ...
Further Information
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Artist Reviews:
Coming Soon!
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Collections:
Canadian Museum of
Contemporary Photography,
Ottawa, Canada
The Polaroid International
Collection, Cambridge, U.S.A.
Teutloff Photo + Video
Collection, Bielefeld, Germany
Canada Council Art Bank,
Ottawa, Canada...
Further Information
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Statement for Tim Porter
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In 1988, Tokyo-based photographer Tim Porter gained access through
special permission to a very privileged space: the Sirirai Hospital in
Bangkok, Thailand. For one week only, he had the opportunity to
photograph surreal specimens of humanity – conjoined twins. Preserved
in formaldehyde and kept in the collection of the Congdon Anatomical
Museum, Porter carefully shot his subjects through their glass
cocoons, eliminating all traces of location, time and place.
At first glance, the viewer is presented with series of portraits of
children. At closer inspection, the figures become grotesque, horrific
and sad. More is quickly revealed, only to take you to a place you
wouldn’t normally go… What was once briefly a portrait of two children
in a warm embrace becomes a jarring image of conjoined twins, either
still at birth or not carried to term. Signifiers such as the texture
of the skin, the development of the skeletal structure, the shapes of
the limbs, eyes or heads all snap us into the reality of the subject
matter before us. The more “normal” figures are the more abstract – we
tend to humanize these easily identifiable figures of children. But it
is the disfigured bodies, those conjoined in devastating ways, which
can be more digestible in today’s society with pushed-to-the-limits
horror-movie culture. Both are types of images are easy to read but
hard to take. One can associate these works with the disturbing but
poetic Morgue series by American photographer, Andres Serrano, or the
paranoid interiors of classrooms and spas by Canadian, Lynne Cohen.
The scale of Porter’s series is extremely important. The prints are
just large enough to be surreal to the viewer, but small enough to be
precious (to both the viewer and the photographer) to allow one to
come up close to inspect them for their subjects, as well as their
stunning print quality. If the photographs were printed following the
current, Western “museum scale” trend, the images would be too large
and disrespectful, or perhaps circus-esque. Tim Porter has great
reverence for his subject matter, and it shows. In Porter’s Still Life
series, the subjects are obviously contained in jars, but it is
Porter’s method of working that eliminates this reality which then, in
turn, helps heighten the level of surrealism in the images – this is
not your average portrait project that one comes across on a daily
basis.
But behind this brutality of nature comes a sense of serenity in
Porter’s photographs. There is a tranquil, almost meditative, feeling
to this body of work. Knowing that these images were shot in Asia, an
Eastern religious, philosophical or spiritual influence can be seen in
them. Since moving to Japan a couple of decades ago, Porter’s
photographic practice has indeed shifted; when he was living in the
United States and later in Canada, his work in the 1970s was strong in
composition, line and light/shadow. Photographers of similar cannon
include Lisette Model, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lee Friedlander and
Robert Frank. But after inserting himself into the Eastern culture of
Tokyo, Porter began to (and continues to) travel about Asia on
documentary photo assignments, exploring his devotion to light and
space. Similar to the passion that Eugène Atget had for his gardens of
Paris, Porter has been exploring Japanese gardens around Tokyo. There
is a meditative element that permits the viewer to visual explore –
and breathe – about the space. The light is religious, surreal and
lovely. The same quality of light is found in his earlier Still Life
series – the floating figures are bathed in a soft, luminous light
while floating effortlessly, peacefully, in place. And there is power
in this peace. And power in Tim Porter’s photographs.
-Written by Christopher Davidson ©2009
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