Gallery of images and ideas
These images are just a few of those included in a new exhibit of Tony's work at the Surrey Art Gallery opening in May, 2015 entitled: Becoming Surrey: Journey Through the Invisible City.
Tony Westman artist talk June 4, 2015 http://www.surrey.ca/culture-recreation/16718.aspx
Exhibit May 23 2015- February 21 2016 http://www.surrey.ca/culture-recreation/16557.aspx
Tony Westman artist talk June 4, 2015 http://www.surrey.ca/culture-recreation/16718.aspx
Exhibit May 23 2015- February 21 2016 http://www.surrey.ca/culture-recreation/16557.aspx
Abstract:
Becoming Surrey: Journey Through the Invisible City is an exploration of the transformation of a suburban landscape into a built-up urban environment, its point of view influenced by the writings of Lewis Mumford’s The City in History, E.V. Walter’s Placeways and Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities that together provide theoretical perspectives to my Journey Through the City of Surrey, where the sense of Place is defined by unique historical legacies and topistic qualities. Becoming Surrey as a ‘Journey’ uses photographs and reflections to identify and confront the 'topistic reality' evident in the built world of Surrey in order to describe and construct an atlas of ‘The Invisible City’; and further, to penetrate and disrupt the trance of growth and development embedded in modernity. My intention is to answer Walter’s riddle of “What is this Place?” The viewer is invited to synthesize and translate both word and image into a consciousness of the complexities of experiencing the City of Surrey as a Place, yet this word / image dialogue entertains topistic ambiguities that suggests neither is capable of standing by itself nor does it offer an immutable representation of the Invisible City.
Becoming Surrey: Journey Through the Invisible City is an exploration of the transformation of a suburban landscape into a built-up urban environment, its point of view influenced by the writings of Lewis Mumford’s The City in History, E.V. Walter’s Placeways and Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities that together provide theoretical perspectives to my Journey Through the City of Surrey, where the sense of Place is defined by unique historical legacies and topistic qualities. Becoming Surrey as a ‘Journey’ uses photographs and reflections to identify and confront the 'topistic reality' evident in the built world of Surrey in order to describe and construct an atlas of ‘The Invisible City’; and further, to penetrate and disrupt the trance of growth and development embedded in modernity. My intention is to answer Walter’s riddle of “What is this Place?” The viewer is invited to synthesize and translate both word and image into a consciousness of the complexities of experiencing the City of Surrey as a Place, yet this word / image dialogue entertains topistic ambiguities that suggests neither is capable of standing by itself nor does it offer an immutable representation of the Invisible City.
" Allegory is in the realm of thought what ruins are to the realm of things."
Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project
Walter Benjamin, Arcades Project
