APPEARANCES
After much anticipation, Barbara Cole’s series, Appearances, exhibited at Bau-Xi Gallery in Toronto, ON, from July 10 - 24, 2021.
The series was featured in several publications, including Creative Boom, My Modern Met, and Aint-Bad Magazine.
In Appearances, Barbara Cole attributes her dreamlike photography to “portraits” of anthropomorphized flowers. As the title of the series suggests, these images ask what it means to possess a form (human or otherwise) and what is considered worthy to be the subject of an artist’s attention. This exploration into transformation, nature, and beauty is marked by Cole’s exquisite use of water as a medium that naturally reshapes form.
The soft and hazy effect of water wrapping around the contours of the flowers imbues the pictures with a wistful quality that is typical of Cole's photography style. As a result, all of the petals, leaves, and stems appear to bleed into the current of the water, transforming into one tender mirage.
Margherita Cole, My Modern Met
Partly out of curiosity, partly due to not being able to work with people during the global pandemic, [Appearances] features dreamlike images of anthropomorphised flora that could be mistaken for Masters' oil paintings, given their delicate and blurred beauty.
Katy Cowan, Creative Boom
