Annie Briard
PARACOSMIC SUN
February 8 – March 7, 2017

Opening Reception: Wednesday, February 8, 5-8pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, February 25, 2pm

In the not so distant past, there was a beautifully poetic vision theory that proclaimed the eye to contain a small crystal, carefully shaping the light so that it may bring us illumination.
Much is still left to our imagination when determining what we see. Our vision captures as well creates, fills-in or otherwise completes what we perceive; one need only look for the blind spots in the center of the sightline or the colorful afterimages orchestrated by the brain. Like crystals, our eyes mediate light and what we see.
Paracosmic Sun presents work that considers these questions through the theme of crystalline vision. Using a photographic approach developed during a residency on Spain’s Costa de la Luz in 2016, the artist produces images of her surroundings that are partially deconstructed and reconstructed into the basis of our perception: red, green and blue. Here, photographs both still, moving and expanded that seem simulated or digitally aberrated are physically captured. How much of what we see is actual? How much is fabricated? What possibilities for being, or communing with each other, might be affected if less normative sights were given more regard?

​Annie Briard is a Canadian artist whose work challenges visual perception. Through video, expanded photography and installation, she explores the intersections between perception paradigms in psychology, neuroscience and existentialism. Her inspiration is drawn from strange encounters with the visible and a desire to survey these with others.
Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions across Canada, notably at Back Gallery Project and VIVO (Vancouver), Joyce Yahouda Gallery (Montreal), La maison des artistes visuels (Winnipeg), and Center 3 (Hamilton) as well as featuring in numerous group shows. Recent inclusions cover Access Gallery, Charles H. Scott Gallery, Capture Photography Festival (Vancouver), Art Souterrain (Montreal), The Rooms (St-John's), Three Shadows Photography Centre (Beijing). She has also participated in international festivals, fairs and screenings at the Lincoln Film Centre New York, Filmambiante Int'l Film Festival (Rio de Janeiro), Matadero Madrid, and the Switzerland Architecture Museum, among others. Her practice has been awarded funding from the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Art Council, and several publications have discussed her recent work, found in the pages of Espace Art Actuel and on the cover of Liaison magazine.
She holds a BFA from Concordia University, and a Master's from Emily Carr University, where she currently teaches and manages the visiting artist program.