In my work I strive to create a sub-reality in which loss, transformation, restoration and change are explored – the final image is a product where creation and destruction come together. The images I create are tinged with a sense of ‘memento mori’ – an old Latin phrase which translates into ‘remember that you are mortal’. This message is meant to emphasize our temporal existence on earth, inviting and reminding the viewer to focus on their spiritual side. The viewer is engaged, feeling insecure and unsure of the image in front of them. David Somers (curator, Art Gallery of Peel) describes my work as having a “sense of uneasiness … something off-putting, and they pull the viewer into an uncomfortable, but challenging, dialogue with the work.” 1
1Somers, David. “Peel Artist’s Series: Fausta Facciponte and Deborah Moore”, Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing and Publication, 2006
In this series of works, the images are about the human body and spirit bound together in one human nature. Each image begins with a single human figure portrayed as both a living being and a spiritual being; partially belonging to the earth and partially of another world. The figure makes contact with the viewer with simple tactics and metaphors and at the same time the viewer is confronted with an uneasy feeling of human frailty and the infirmness we have on earth.
The ‘Lost and Found’ Series is inspired by old and forgotten things that I find in thrift stores, garage sales or antique markets. I am intrigued by the way humans do not actually own their possessions but merely borrow them for a short time in their life. Things get lost, broken, stolen and passed around from one owner to the next. As time passes they take on new owners, and the material things go through a transformation which becomes part of their history and the passage of time.
This series of work began by collecting old forgotten photographs.
Time can transform a photographic image through natural decay and human intervention. Scratches, dust, fading, and the slip of the emulsion are marks of the passage of time and history - all which add a haunting and underlying beauty to the image.
Once I find an image I want to work with, it is photographed. Any worn parts of the image are retained instead of being restored. These worn bits are kept because they are part of its past. The image is also altered, by adding colour and sometimes the picture is inverted – making it look like a negative. By intervening with the image it goes through a new process of creation, and another step in the passage of time. The images are then printed at a large scale.
The worn images are found again through the eyes of new viewers, ready to be rediscovered. They are full of wonderment, questions and surprises, offering only bits of information to challenge and engage the new viewer to complete the image within their own imagination.
Part of The Lost and Found Series.
This series of work began by collecting and photographing the discarded dolls from thrift shops and the second rate bargain dolls from today’s dollar stores. The images are printed larger than life, confronting the viewer with an underlying and haunting beauty that is sometimes overlooked because of their monetary devalue.
“My heart pounded as I ripped into the wrapping paper, opened the box, and cried out as I held my first and very own wrist watch… a mickey mouse watch”
Passage of Time is a series of photographic images that deal with the theme of time and memories. The images address the movement of time, the transformation of things around us, and our reconstruction of past events.
All of the images are fragments of past events - images accumulated for some time. They are simple uncomplicated images that embrace everyday existence. Each image has been juxtaposed with a second image that occurred within minutes, hours or even years, forming long, horizontal pictures… creating, in essence, a timeline. With this, each work attempts to show the movement of time, either advancing or rewinding. The movement of time is also shown as the sequential images present a transformation of things, whether subtle or distinct.
As a composite of fragments showing the movement of time and the changes that occur as a result, each work represents a passage, a memory, the paths of transformation of the things around us, and our perception of how the present was formed.
As visual information is remembered it becomes more elusive, a result of human processing of memories. For this reason the images are presented in an inexplicit manner. Intentionally, the image rejects the clarity and the literalness that can be achieved through photography, hoping to evoke an impermeable image. By lacking endurance or staying power, the image floats on the page, sinks into the background, or lacks definition by fading and blurring past the edges - the image hangs on the edge of memory, as the images that form most of our memories do.
This series of works are images of people on the beach. The images reject the clarity and sharpness that can be achieved with photography and instead offer the viewer only bits and fragments of undefined shapes and forms. The shapes and forms are easily understood to be human figures but at the same time they are featureless and the viewer can never precisely capture enough information about the figures they are looking at; they could be anyone.
By creating figural shapes and forms that are delicate and light the images are at once ethereal, hinting at the frailty of life and our own temporal existence as human beings. There is a haunting and mysterious quality to these works because they balance between existing and non-existing, between defined and non-defined and between matter and spirit.
Gardens have existed for centuries, but only recently have they become places for everyone to enjoy. Prior to this, they were privately owned by emperors and rulers and the public was granted access only on special occasions.
It was the invention of the "rural cemetery" in which the public became interested in gardens and parks. Mount Auburn Cemetery (Cambridge, Mass.) was established through the efforts of Dr. Jacob Bigelow (a physician and botanist) who believed that the traditional church-yard burial ground was not sanitary. Mt. Auburn became a popular place where people would escape the city and find solitude and tranquility. People even went there for family picnics. Other cemeteries were also established, like Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. As time passed, land was acquired for the public to develop for recreational use.
These works explore the historical development of the garden by using the image of a beautiful, yet rustic, public garden in Italy; but the images are also a vehicle on which I explore the taste of photography. I do not want to hide any of the photographic process. The viewer can see the chemicals, fixer, developer, even the fingerprints on these manually processed images. All the essential ingredients, the process of making a photograph, are part of the images. I have rejected the clarity and the literalness of how we know photography, to make a picture of the process. Reality, what photography aspires to record, is shown, but highly altered by the photographic process. The viewer can feast their eyes on the flavour of the medium, and in doing so, explore two histories which developed over similar periods of time... the histories of gardens and photography
I met this little creature, Toni, several years ago; I have been photographing her since then. The primary source of material for all of this work is the everyday life around this little being.
Portraits and family snapshots are two very different approaches to photographing people. A great portrait reveals as much about the photographer as it does about the subject, since it is a formal and controlled presentation of the subject. In contrast, family snapshots are candid and, thus, rich in revealing something about the people and space around us, telling a story and documenting a memory. In these photographs, I am striving for a tender balance between these two approaches - to create a picture that formally documents the beauty of the body as it grows and changes as well as record something about our suburban social identity. In doing this I am also trying to represent, visually, my own emotional experience as a mother.
Most of these photographs were taken in Mississauga - the suburban landscape - exterior and interior. Usually thought of as sterile and conforming, a closer look at the suburban landscape reveals that a prize can be found between the standard pattern of houses or during a disciplined, silent afternoon nap. She, Toni, shows me how fertile and beautiful the suburban landscape can be. She challenges me as a new mother, and as an artist. She forces me to look closely at the house, the home, the earth and the family. As she discovers it, it becomes rich and new to me. As many artists continue to look for social meanings in the urban centers, many others, including me, are now looking to an equally important beauty in the suburbs.
...and so, I've only just begun. I will keep looking and photographing as she, the subject, moves against the suburban backdrop on the everyday stage of life.
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