Blur 23
Artifact
2023.006.003
Sandra Brewster
2021
Sandra Brewster’s practice considers the migration of people from one place to another, and how that change of location and environment affects people’s sense of self. She specifically references the migration of her parents and their peers who left Guyana for Toronto in the late 1960s.
Blur 23 is from a series of gestural portraits made with photo-based gel transfers. The transfer process reveals scratches, creases, and tears on each surface. “These surface imperfections can be read as analogous to migratory experiences replicating notions of loss, displacement, erasure, and transferal,” notes author Pamela Edmunds. In Brewster’s desire to capture forms of movement that prevent the subject from being fixed to a particular moment or perspective, the resulting blurring effect has rendered their facial features almost being illegible, pointing to a feeling of being erased and ignored.
Brewster’s manipulation of photographic images highlights the difficulties inherent in locating or “fixing” a Black subject. “[Blurring],” Brewster notes, “is like a resistance, isn’t it? Black people have a way of holding back, keeping something to ourselves. There is power in that, in being able to conceal parts of who we are.”
photo-based gel transfer on archival paper
Width: 84 cm;
Height: 98 cm;
Width: 94 cm; Height: 107.5 cm; Thickness: 5 cm;
Notes: wood white
Width: 94 cm; Height: 107.5 cm; Thickness: 5 cm;
Notes: wood white
PRINT
Collection of the University of Saskatchewan. Purchase, 2023.