PLATFORM PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD
PLATFORM is very pleased to announce Rhayne Vermette as the winner of the 2019 PLATFORM photography award. The artist’s practice focuses heavily on experimental processes which merge numerous filmic forms into select works where fiction meets documentary and narratives are transformed into animation. Vermette also carries with her a strong practice which includes collage, photography and drawing.
This annual award includes a solo exhibition in Gallery 2, $2000, darkroom access, a one-year membership to PLATFORM and a $500 gift card from our sponsor, Don’s Photo.
“My work hinges heavily on various means of reducing something into a singular plane yet I always strive to uphold the integrity of a layered perspective. I’ve explored this idea of collapsed space through notions of indeterminate architectural section cuts by way of cell reconstructions in 8mm, 16mm, 35mm film and negatives (in both still and moving image forms). This way of image making places my practice somewhere very tenuous, teetering on the divide between artifact and image.
I am obsessed with the frame and the eroticism of various prosceniums at play. I am always caught up in the act of framing and re-framing to create infinite loops of worlds contained in the belly of a much larger whale. In my films, optical tracks and sprockets interrupt the scene, speaking to the material and unseen qualities of film. While my collages and physical prints are carefully set into discarded scraps, chipped away from some larger conceptual mass. The framing of the image is always key and a large facet of any of my works. Building upon concepts of that which is obscured or unseen, I place my own creations into that delicious space – often encased in custom-made, reconstituted frames, always presented backwards.”
About the Artist
Following a very conscious departure from architectural academia, Rhayne Vermette (b. 1982, Notre Dame de Lourdes, Manitoba), figured a distinctive craft within the construction of images through film and photography. Primarily self-taught, and under the influence of post-war Italian architects, Vermette’s work is ignited by themes from the Decadent movement as well as notions of the indeterminate. Her artistic practice comes into focus through a volume of analogue moving images works exceeding over 20 short films and numerous exhibitions. Her films have screened at innumerable occasions including Images Film Festival, Jihlava International Film Festival, Festival du Nouveau Cinema, European Media Arts Festival, DOXA, Melbourne International Animation Festival, and many more. Vermette’s exhibitions include venues such as Frame Art Warehouse, aceartinc., the Edge and many more.
In 2016, Rhayne was awarded the Hot House award which was created by the Winnipeg Film Group to recognize the career of an established filmmaker in Manitoba. The award supported the creation of her first feature length script, Ste. Anne, which is currently in production with an anticipated release in 2020.
Credit for announcement photo: Divya Mehra
