“I reuse old works, old concepts, incorporated with the new. Whatever works and I don’t stay within the lines. Nothing I make doesn’t remind me of something I’ve absorbed from the echo of the last century, the one I came of age in, and from even before. The interpretations of others and the seeing for myself.

Although generally I use photographic images and related processes as the start of the work, I don’t think of the final image as a photograph. Indeed in terms of how a photograph should look is not a concern. How the individual print looks is; the line, colour and textures of my world that I use to share my apophenia. There is an almost inherent lack of control that is integral to my work. Meaning defined and experience sensed is never the same.”

~ artist statement, Merle Addison

Análekta – meaning “to gather up; to collect” – an exhibition of new works by Merle Addison, documents his switch from analogue to digital. Reworking old images using digital overlays, the final prints owe as much to printmaking as photography. At once modern and nostalgic, the works transform the media through their highly manipulated surfaces.

Merle Addison is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art producing work in photography over 40 years. Addison has been a long time member of grunt – and has produced performance photography for the gallery – for the past 25 years. His exhibition Still curated by Archer Pechawis showed at grunt in 2000 and featured First Nations Performance Artists from across Canada.

Merle Addison’s exhibition will be featured in the photography festival Capture 2016. A monograph by Dana Claxton will accompany the exhibition.

Curated by Glenn Alteen.

> Check out Merle Addison featured in Capture Fest 2016