Photographic transfer-type on generic cardstock. Set of 200 monoprints.
Knock Knock! or I will never own a home, is a continual and explorative series into the 21st century capitalist rental system, an admission that many will simply never own a shelter. This admission stems endless taxation without prosper, predatory investment firms raising property values, and the rising cost of seemingly everything that comes under the umbrella of the North American experience. Furthermore, this experience is not born from 2020's strife but the outcome of inevitable decisions within markets leading to seemingly unconquerable problems stemming back to an older era; deplorable real-estate markets, rising degrees of un-housed peoples from nearly every sector and age group, and ripples from the smallest blip within globalized power structures leading to inconceivably adverse outcomes for the smallest town. Of course there is so much more to say but it all leads the fact that owning a home in this economic climate is utterly unimaginable; we can only cherish what remains.
Impressionable brownstone facades like those Victorian and Gothic Revival abodes have always sparked a nostalgic twinge just as much as a quaint cottage’s foyer, big red barn gates, or the splendid Jelly Beans of Newfound Land; from the framing of classical columns, arches, and entablatures creating an idea of order, proportion, and elegance, to the verbose indenting utilizing multiple columns to form depth and perspective. Amidst all these components sits staircases forming both physical and symbolic elevation, drama, movement and ritual all supplanted by climate, moss, lichen, and mold clinging to everything stone and timber courtesy of lingering Atlantic fog. Modern adaptations have seen some of these structures painting vibrant colorations, bright yellow doors and fiery oranges nestled within midnight black porticos, but this favorability does make once question the this initial nostalgia. After all, these are structure of British and French colonialism, landmarks to an inarguably bloodied history whose ramifications and imperialistic reaches stand untetherable.
The homes, the doors and windows constructed within modern North America are deduced impressions, not as a means to escape colonial ties, but merely the output of enterprise, of demand of shelter, of efficiency, suburbanization and sprawl. Long gone are the stoneworked columns and detailed dentil blocks, neighbourhoods are built for car centric movement and downtown growth is often reserved for the undeniably featureless 5-over-1 or over-1s, also known as podium buildings. These structures allow for higher density of both residential and retail purposes while acting unabashedly complacent in gentrification. It is a circular affair, the few withstanding structures rise beyond affordability while raising the outer burbs to equally unaffordable levels thus spurring additional construction of spaces that can only ever be rented, the doors of which you do not own. It is important to note these are not social enterprises of government projects, but private investments, developments, and rental schemes enriching other’s pockets.
Knock Knock! is as much an appreciation of what currently stands within so called Atlantic Canada as it is a heed to what may soon be lost and through repetition, migratory & lens based documentation, and abrasive printmaking applications. These doors have been collected throughout Atlantic Canada and elsewhere, and mono-printed through photochemical transfers so as to impart a sense they are vanishing into their replacements. This is keenly explored in the generic 10.75cm x 27.9cm cardstock of which the prints are situated and accentuated further by constant replication. Yet there is a pleasantness that stands amongst the ongoing collection, the color and variation that intrigues audiences in the nearly 200 some mono-prints. Moreover, these are mono-prints, singular editions serving to contrast the repetition, editions which can never be remade with the same color, texture, and vibrancy.
