Consumption

Akin Gallery June & July 2020

Consumption is a series of images that explore the idea of Gender, Consumption, Collecting and is also about positive and negative space. By combining the digital aesthetic with handcrafted details, I blur the lines between the digital world and the human hand, gendered stereotypes, the truth vs. folktale. The liminal space.

I have photographed old paper dolls that were mouse-eaten as a metaphor for gender confines, consumption and collection. The use of botanicals references work done by women illustrators and photographers during the
victorian era. The curiosity of the Victorians along with their sickening approach to collections, i.e. killing the thing you are studying, invokes the idea of capture, consumption, decay, and death.

By playing and using old tropes, I have created new visuals to push against patriarchal hegemony. I have used older/fixed icons such as a dress as a frame to re/view the world.

Consumption Invite Final 2020
Collecting Series
Consumption Akin Social Media26_
Consumption Akin Social Media25_
Consumption Invite Final 2020

Freeze Frames

I am thrilled to have my work on show at the Queen Mother Cafe, 208 Queen Street West, Toronto until October 13, 2018. One of the things I am grateful for is my printer, Paul Shillinger, CSi Print Studio. He is graciously hosting my work here: https://csiprintstudio.com/elsie-nisonen/

Queen Mother Cafe Show – Sept. 1 – Oct. 13, 2018

These photographs of ice were captured one cold spring morning in my neighbourhood. While out walking the dogs I noticed the morning sun lighting up the ice that had formed in my local park.  The ice was beautifully transformed into landscapes, outer space, architecture, alien structures and so much more. The more I look, the more I see in each photograph. These images found me that freezing morning rather than the other way around.

Writers often describe how words flow through them almost like the writer is the channel for a higher voice.

I too find the light speaking to me in this way. Where my surroundings are illuminated in a way rarely seen.  Or is it that my eyes are trained to see the beauty in everyday things? All that I really know is that the mundane is cast in a new magical light.

And so I found myself in my local off-leash, dog park one February morning and the ice was glowing from within and the light slaked these incredible tiny ice formations turning them into the entire universe.

I remember when Chaos Theory hit the mainstream and how my mind was blown by the repetition of shapes: a shoreline resembles a fern leaf, a seashell mimicked a cloud formation.  My mind keeps wandering back to these ideas of repeating patterns as I study these ice images. I see the cosmos, a spine, a new star forming, angel’s wings. I see razor clams and an alien landscape reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s Alien. I see structure and architecture and form.  Truly the universe can be found in these tiny ice formations.

They say that the best camera to use is the one that you have with you.  On that frosty morning, I had my I-phone 6. I even brought my trusty DSLR the next morning but the magic had gone. The angle of light different, the higher voice had moved on to sing elsewhere.

Working with Maddie Antoinette

I had the pleasure to collaborate with Maddie Monroe aka Maddie Antoinette recently.  Among other things, she writes for Toronto Beauty Review.  She had posted on social media that she was looking for a photographer to collaborate with and I was on the look out for parties to photograph. So we were happy to find each other.  I was in the midst of taking a Creative Wedding Photography Class at Ryerson University and jumped at the chance to hone my craft.   Maddie turned out to be a wonderful person as well as a great writer, a superb host and purveyor of kickass music (who knew she would like The Streets?) Would love to do this again. It was hard work and lots of fun.

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