Scott Massey
Light Adjustments

From December 4, 2014 to February 7, 2015
Opening on December 6 at 7 pm

Production-dissemination residency in collaboration with PRIM

Through a series of works which, in appearance, borrow the mechanisms of scientific observation and demonstration, Scott Massey plays with the limits of visual perception, forcing us to modify, or sometimes to correct outright, our intuitive reading of what we see. Each of his works is carefully written, both in its choice of subject and in the very means by which the image is created, as if he were seeking to achieve not an objective representation (of landscape, light, time, the forces of the universe) but rather a kind of absolute. By idealising the mechanisms of representation, Massey’s work examines our desire to “see as a means of knowing”.

This exhibition presents, first of all, the results of Massey’s observations of the moon and the sun using a variety of instruments, both out of date and sophisticated. There then follow various manipulations which, in their visual transposition, highlight the role of the optical in capturing and decoding phenomena. The exhibition closes, in a sort of reversal of its own discourse, on the “staging” and repetition of an experiment, the indispensable yet usually invisible steps of a conclusive demonstration.

With Light Adjustments, Dazibao presents for the first time in Montreal the work of Scott Massey, recipient of the eighth annual production-dissemination residency offered by PRIM and Dazibao.

Scott Massey lives and works in Vancouver. He graduated from the photography program at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Massey’s work typically explores the confluence of art and science whereby he accentuates and amplifies natural phenomena, often heightened through artificial means or via slight manipulations. Light as a medium figures heavily in his work, which derives out of research into areas of quantum physics, cosmology, astronomy, and other scientific disciplines. Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include Unstable Ground (Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, 2015); The Day Breaks (Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography, Toronto, 2015); Let’s Reach c Together (Charles H. Scott Gallery, Vancouver, 2013); Topologies and Limits (CSA Space, Vancouver, 2011); Swan Song (Luminato Box, Toronto, 2009). His work has also been included in group shows in Canada and abroad at Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Denmark, 2013); Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver, 2012); the Columbus College of Art & Design (Ohio, 2007); and the CONTACT Photography Festival (Toronto, 2007).