|
Sept. 28, 2012
Art that brings life into focus
Umbrellas inspire Nomi Kaplan’s Rain, now at the Zack.
OLGA LIVSHIN
Rain is such a common occurrence in Vancouver that not many local artists would consider it an inspiration. Nomi Kaplan does. Her solo show, Rain, consisting of 25 photographs of umbrellas, opened at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery on Sept. 13.
The umbrellas that became Kaplan’s art are not colorful or in any way unusual. Before her clever touch transformed them into art pieces, they were small, clear, plastic umbrellas anyone can buy at a dollar store. But after Kaplan applied her vivid imagination, the umbrellas became items of fantasy: a shy bride, pregnant and swathed in a virginal white veil; a passionate flamenco dancer, resplendent in red ribbon; a mischievous teenager girl, experimenting with her hair. Every photograph tells a story.
“These umbrellas are like people to me,” said Kaplan in an interview with the Independent. “Some walk down the street. Others, the ones with black veils, are sad. The ones with the dandelions are like children, playful, fooling around, looking at themselves in the mirror.”
Many of the photos are black and white, with only a splash of color to emphasize the silhouettes and forms created by the artist. “I like black and white,” explained Kaplan of her choice. “I’m interested in shadows. I think when you work with the shades of gray, it’s the ultimate photography. Color is sometimes incidental.”
Kaplan’s affair with photography is of long duration. Her mother was a professional photographer. After the family escaped Lithuania in 1940 and came to Canada, her mother’s photo studio provided the family with a living. “There was a war in Europe,” Kaplan reminisced. “My mother photographed soldiers and weddings.”
But Kaplan didn’t wish to follow in her mother’s footsteps. “Mother always worked with chemicals. I didn’t want that.”
Since childhood, Kaplan has liked to draw, so after high school, she took art classes. Unfortunately, the times were lean, and she couldn’t dedicate herself to the arts: she had to earn a living.
The arts came later, after her marriage and children. By the 1970s, photography became not only her passion but her means of expression. Fortunately, at that time, she didn’t have to work with chemicals and she could devote herself to the purely artistic exploration of the medium.
Also in the 1970s, she gained experience as a filmmaker. As a member of the creative women’s collective ReelFeelings, she co-produced, edited and co-wrote various videos, slide productions and a film. “It was during Pierre Trudeau’s era,” she recalled. “He gave lots of grants to groups in the artistic fields. Vancouver came alive in those times. Everywhere people created art: film, theatre, dance.”
After her few-year sojourn into the film industry, she left it without regret. “I didn’t like working with a group,” she explained. “In a group, some people are more creative than others. You have to be democratic and diplomatic to come to a creative decision.”
The artist in her chafed at the creative compromises inherent in such surroundings, so she returned to photography – an explicitly solitary art form. “In winter, I prefer to make collages. I buy books and magazines so I might use the images from them. But in summer, I photograph, nature mostly. Today, for example, I looked around and saw such an interesting tree trunk. Its twisted shape was unusual; it cast mysterious shadows….
“Everyone can see beauty; you just have to be willing to slow down and look,” she added. “When I walk after a rain, I watch the puddles. There could be a reflection of a tree in a puddle or some leaves, or yourself. A camera helps: when you look through the camera, it isolates things, puts them into focus.”
Kaplan has exhibited her photography throughout North America and in Israel. Several of her solo shows have attracted acclaim. One of these was a show of collages that used medieval images superimposed on her photographs of graffiti in Brooklyn. In 1988, the show traveled across Canada garnering attention.
Another milestone show for Kaplan was Kaddish. “In 1990, I got a Canada Council grant and went to Europe to photograph the traces of the Holocaust. I visited the sites of concentration camps in Germany and Poland, but I never went to Lithuania, from where we flew in 1940. I didn’t want to give [Lithuania] any of my money.” The exhibition of those photos toured several Canadian cities in 1992.
Imbued with pain and grief and memory, the exhibit was very powerful, but the artist paid a high price for immersing her soul in such a difficult theme.
“Afterwards, I couldn’t create art,” she admitted. “I was depleted emotionally.” It took her five years and the help of friends and family before she could produce another major show – the whimsical Torah Studies, with Japanese accents, in recognition of Japanese Consul
Chiune Sugihara, who by issuing life-saving transit visas to Jews of Lithuania in 1940 saved Kaplan’s life. That show in 2006 also took place at the Zack Gallery.
Rain will be on at the gallery until Oct 14. To learn more, visit nomikaplanart.com.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
^TOP
|
