“Pieces of the Moon ~ Photographs by Mikael Kennedy ”
Opening Reception ~ Thursday June 30th, 2011 6pm til late
Presented by Catalog Gallery, Vancouver
Curated by… me!

I am beyond thrilled to have the opportunity to hang this show! I have been a huge fan of New York based photographer Mikael Kennedy since the first time I wrote about him in 2009. We quickly became friends… well, email friends who have never actually met in person. Anyway, earlier this year I had an idea for a show, I emailed him about it {as email friends do}, and he said yes! Easy, right? Now all I had to do was find a gallery… and, thankfully, that was easy too. The guys at Catalog Gallery in Vancouver offered their amazing space in the very cool neighborhood of Gastown. I’ll keep you posted on our progress over the next few weeks… but until then, here, in a curatorial nutshell, is what this beautiful show is all about:

Over the past decade, American born photographer Mikael Kennedy has taken thousands of Polaroids during what has often been described as a ‘Kerouac-esque” journey, wandering back and forth across the continent, hitching rides, couch surfing, moving from city to city. In 2010, Kennedy had his first solo show in New York City, titled “Shoot the Moon” with the Peter Hay Halpert Gallery who now represents this immense body of work. “Shoot the Moon”, an exhibition 500 Polaroids was an introduction to Kennedy’s story, edited down from the thousands of Polaroids. I have looked at this series countless times, and while all of his work is a mysterious narrative, it is the photographs of the women that have completely drawn me in.

“Pieces of the Moon” features 50 images that have been pulled from the original “Shoot the Moon” show. When the photographs of these women are shown along-side the other 450 images in the series, they’re a quiet part of the overall story. But when hung together in this smaller, more focused grouping they create a beautiful, feminine view into the personal life of the artist. There is an undeniable intimacy in each image, revealing an obvious closeness to the subject – however, to the viewer, the details still remain vague. Were these friends, lovers, strangers, or all of the above? The images are titled with the name of the woman, the location of the photo, and the year, leaving it completely up to the viewer to piece these relationships, friendships, and chance meetings together. These are the women that have shaped Mikael Kennedy’s life over the past decade – and they are beautiful.