MY FAVOURITE ARTIST HAS A NEW SHOW

Disclaimer: I’m married to her. (Banksy is No.2)

Karey Shinn has a new solo exhibition of photographs,
“Portraits: Icons of Thrift,”
at the Worth Gallery in Toronto,
May 28–June 7.
Here is a brief selection (low res.)

 

Selfie with Joe (above)

The photograph purports to be a selfie taken by the doll depicted—a miniature version of the artist. It isn’t that, of course, but it’s shot by the right kind of camera—a mobile phone with a wide-angle lens, ideal for close-ups, which, for selfie portraits, produces a shallow depth of field with an out-of-focus background.

And so it is that toy photography, necessarily a close-up endeavour, long stigmatized by its blurred backgrounds, has come to resemble the “reality” we’ve become accustomed to, via the self portraits we take with our mobile phones and their wide-angle, distorting lenses. To further normalize such visual intelligence, this bug has been featurized as intentional bokeh, in Portrait Mode.

 

Statue of a Young Man

The illusion of reality that Karey’s doll photography creates is further enhanced when seen at large size, with the subjects occupying a significant amount of the viewer’s field of vision. This doesn’t happen online, but when standing two feet away from a print of Statue of a Young Man, 36 inches square, in which the dolls are twice their actual size, they approximate real people six feet away—so the viewer has the fleeting impression of being in the gallery with people-sized dolls. Especially if one actually happens to be in an art gallery. Hint: visit the show! Of course, a similar proportionality can be had by looking at a small print quite closely, but in that case one is focusing on a near object, not at a more natural distance, which destroys the effect. 

The illusion is deceptive, but pointedly so, suspending the viewer between two worlds. That’s one way art creates meaning through ambiguity, as a vantage point from which to appreciate one’s relationship with reality. For seamless fakery, there’s CGI and generative AI.  

The Statue touches many issues—and that’s what’s nice about Karey’s work here—it’s not didactic. Nonetheless, it is informed by her commitment to the environment. For several decades she was a tireless campaigner, chairing and participating in Toronto-based environmental committees, organizations and environmental assessment steering committees. The focus of her MFA in 2004‑5 was environmental art, and her three fashion collections of 2009‑2012, at F.A.T. (Toronto Alternative Art and Fashion Week), addressed climate change, pesticides and oilfield pollution. And so, her dolls have been up-cycled—rescued from thrift stores where they were ignominiously bundled together in plastic bags, often naked, and destined, if not bought, for the knacker’s yard. Karey has made them fabulous outfits tailored from lovely scraps of material collected over many years of couture and costume design, and given them new, exciting and important jobs modelling in art photography.

 

HazMat Man

With a lifespan of 50 years, 12‑inch dolls are mortal too. Karey’s Hazardous Materials Training Suit, with clear plastic visor and high visibility nylon fabric, is designed to protect its wearer from chemical spills. He’s wearing gloves too, for complete safety. She painted the background wind turbines—a sketch for a previous, larger work in acrylics—and posed her guy on artificial turf, ready to go. The use of obviously theatrical props is an old trope of portrait photographers, such as William Notman in the 19th century, and Cecil Beaton, who famously commissioned a stage set backdrop for his 1953 portrait of the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth.

It’s remarkable how the intense fluorescent colour of the jumpsuit blows out tonality in this digital “image capture,” becoming strangely flat in all media—both ink and pixel renderings—except 16-bit display. Still, even online, the size and angular shape of this solid orange area reinforces the stiff, robotic pose, which is really all that’s available to the little fellow.  

 

Muskoka Joe

This is not a “Ken” doll. He’s an action figure, dammit! When the one-sixth scale world started with Barbie in 1959, she only moved at neck, shoulders and hips. No arm or leg articulation. Same thing with Ken, when Mattel’s Ruth Handler introduced him as the boyfriend in 1961. Was he ever dorky! (Karey’s epithet.) Stan Weston sensed an opportunity and came up with the idea of action figures, i.e. military dolls for boys, to the same 12‑inch scale, but with full articulation, exactly like an artist’s mannequin. From rival toy company Hasbro in 1964, this upped the ante, and eventually Barbie and Ken would acquire more poseability.

The fact is, Karey much prefers working with poseable action figures for photographing “her guys,” inventing new lives for them beyond the military roles prescribed by their manufacturers. The secret lives of super guys. They have considerably more personality than poor Ken, enough for Lanard’s Ultra Corps action figure, off-duty, to dignify a simple head and shoulders portait like Muskoka Joe, dressed in her custom “Kenora DJ” and wool toque (adapted from a baby’s sock), and photographed at Lake Muskoka.

 

Besties

Saw the movie, bought the car. Well, she does have more wheels than Billy Gibbons. The ladies are our daughter Zo Magik and her friend The BLK LT$. Karey matched Mattel’s purple outfit with a custom lime green hoodie and faux fur overvest, and painted the floral backdrop. It’s funny how dolls that were mass produced in factories can resemble people one knows, when suitably attired and presented.

 

Canadian Gothic

After Karey had created her one-sixth size alter ego, scaling down one of her favourite coats and adding tiny versions of a hat and scarf, she came for me. A certain Albus Dumbledore, out of Mattel, 2018—the one with the molded beard, not the later version with flexible hair—was to impersonate yours truly, coffee mug in hand, as the missus and I pose outside our front door, neatly framed. Yes, I do indeed have a herringbone tweed jacket, red scarf, and one of those funny woolskin hats with flaps that tie up over the top.

 

Candice

Imagine a bouquet of tulips, real live tulips, at six times normal size. That’s the idea this picture suggests to me, as both doll and flowers are artificial, yet the flowers are life size. Empathy for the doll. But I suspect it was sympathetic magic that prompted Karey to marry an exuberant display of colourful tulips with this rather shy but perfectly glamorous little woman. ●