Haunting beauty seems timeless
BY ROBERT AMOS, TIMES COLONISTMARCH 5, 2009
To see the haunting photographs of Nancy Angermeyer, you must attend a performance at the McPherson Playhouse or call ahead (250-361-0800) to be let into the gallery, which is in the theatre's foyer. It's a bit of trouble, but it's worth the effort. Angermeyer has created haunting moments of beauty.
Angermeyer arrived on the coast from Wisconsin in 1980 and was, for many years, a painter of large photo-realist canvases.
"They took forever to paint," she told me. They were successful in their way, but she could only make a very few in a year. She felt she did not have enough time to express her dreams artistically. But, as often happens, life took its own course.
Angermeyer moved to Saturna Island and spent two years building her house -- with her own hands. For the past 10 years she has been living on the island and "off the grid." When she was able to get back to her artwork, things had changed. She found herself spending more time in the darkroom. She began to layer the photos she printed, and to paint on the prints. More and more, she began to concentrate her creative activity on her computer.
"I'm really good on the computer," Angermeyer mused, "though I do miss the darkroom. But the computer offers me different alternatives." It seems no longer necessary to actually paint on the prints. With Photoshop, she can draw imagery from her vast repertoire of pictures, mix and match them until they reveal new meanings, and push and pull the saturation of each element until an entrancing story hovers before us.
Angermeyer's large giclée prints are gently coloured and beautifully printed. They usually contain three elements. Unique in her work are fragments of classical sculptures which she photographed in Italy. These inspire her with their timeless figurative images.
"I'm mesmerized by them," she said. The broken pieces of statuary from museums and civic squares are presented out of context, incomplete and in a different situation than they were originally intended. Yet there is an unmistakable energy they still retain.
To bring them to life, she creatively merges these fragments with her photographs of beautiful young models, many captured during Ballet B.C. rehearsals. Unlike the crisp images of the marbles, her photographs of these models are handheld, with a slow shutter speed for a slight blur. Some of their poses are staged, to create "a bit of a conversation" between the two, the artist explained. Others strike up a relationship by chance. "This bridges some of the gap," she said.
For a background, she sets her actors before something subtly evocative: a staircase or a door, a bit of fresco painted on a wall. On occasion the bricks of the wall seem to merge with the flesh of the model and impress themselves upon the drapery of the antique sculpture. There is more than a hint of the surrealist in her approach.
In fact, Angermeyer told me that her compositions are "very, very allegorical." She suggested a few themes but then stopped short. "I do have a story to tell about each one, but that's my story. I want you to find your story." She gives us plenty to work with: a Greek god in marble enfolds the warm shoulders of a tender young woman; a bird takes flight; a doorway beckons; a puff of cumulus cloud drifts by outside a window.
Angermeyer's photos are softly suggestive and bathed in the faded tones of ancient Mediterranean calm. There seems to be something timeless going on here. The myths whisper to us from a dream world just beyond our grasp.
Nancy Angermeyer until March 16, at the Gallery at the Mac, McPherson Playhouse, 3 Centennial Square, Victoria.
www.nancyangermeyer.com
robertamos@telus.net
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