Double Takes
Solo Exhibition
Doug Dumais
November 17, 2022 - January 14, 2023
Hilda Woolnough Gallery @ The Guild, 111 Queen Street
Charlottetown, PEI
Opening Reception: Friday, November 18, 2022, from 5 to 7 p.m.
At first glance, the images in DOUBLE TAKES appear to be simple pictures of landscapes, construction sites, root systems, or stones. All images in the exhibition, however, have been heavily edited. Upon closer inspection, many photographs contain impossible repetitions and visual “glitches” that alter the reality they depict. Other supposedly straightforward images are composites of several pictures, thus representing non-existent landscapes and scenes.
The goal of DOUBLE TAKES is to create photographic equivalents of rhyming stanzas of poetry or verses of songs. Similar to how songs or poems rhyme, several pieces in the exhibition contain echoes of their own details, creating internal rhythms and patterns. Other images in the show are photographic recreations of paintings by artists such as Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) and Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), generating echoes that resonate beyond the work and across art history.
Though the editing in the images is seamless, these familiar scenes may become deeply unfamiliar once viewers notice the repetitions and inconsistencies. DOUBLE TAKES thus transforms monotonous things such as trees, stones, and construction materials into events in the midst of a lively process of becoming. Ultimately, this exhibition exploits photography’s artifice and revels in the medium’s thrilling capacity to trick or create fictional narratives.