Opening Thursday, April 18, 5:30-8:30 PM
Trail Blaze presents images of matchbooks collected throughout the world by a travelling salesman in the 1960s and ‘70s. In Liss Platt’s latest series she explores the mystique of ‘being on the road’, the matchbook as a talisman and evidence of ‘having been there’, and the inherent nostalgia offered by analog keepsakes. Platt’s work motivates audiences to reconsider assumptions about what objects are appropriate as art while encouraging contemplation of often taken-for-granted aspects of everyday life.
Aesthetically, the matchbooks are presented with maximum detail on a plain white background to accentuate the evidentiary quality while referencing the cataloging of an archive. In the large photographs, the single matchbooks become totemic and monumental – stand-ins for the place to which they refer. In contrast, in the small photographs (where the matchbooks are printed life size and presented as singles and grids), the matchbooks become more intimate and personal – objects meant to be slipped in a pocket.
Trail Blaze exploits the possibilities for portraiture and storytelling via this accidental archive while prioritizing the aesthetic interplay of the matchbook’s attributes. The exhibition offers an opportunity to reflect on a bygone era, its residual artifacts, and the subjects constituted through its zeitgeist. The title, Trail Blaze, offers a point of entry to understanding the matchbook archive: as a verb, it represents the pathway forged by the intrepid salesman, and as a noun, it identifies the markers of this journey that make up the collection.
This exhibition is dedicated to Keith O’Brien (1966 – 2019) who loaned Platt his father’s matchbook archive.
Liss Platt is a multimedia artist working in digital and traditional photography, video, film, installation, performance, artist’s books, web art, and any combination thereof. Her work has been exhibited and screened in North America and internationally, including The McMaster Museum of Art (Hamilton, ON), University of Waterloo Art Gallery (Waterloo, ON), Stride Gallery (Calgary, AB), Documenta Madrid, Paris Feminist and Lesbian Film Festival, and San Francisco Documentary Festival. In 2012, she received a City of Hamilton Arts Award in Visual Arts for career achievement by an established artist. In 2016 her documentary, Dark Horse Candidate, was chosen Best Feature Documentary at the 38th Big Muddy Film Festival in Carbondale, IL. Platt is a member of the queer art collective, Shake-n-Make. She lives in Hamilton, Ontario and is a Professor of Multimedia at McMaster University.
Liss Platt would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council
