Powerful photo portraits reveal souls of subjects

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photos Collection of the winnipeg art gallery Sheila Spence�s Untitled (Portrait of a Male), above; Sharon and Bob, below.

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Over the past two decades, Sheila Spence has been exploring the connections and relationships between the lens and the subjects that sit in front of it. Pictures of Me is a retrospective of Spence's body of black and white photographic portraiture. From the portraits of the local art community to the family series and the West Broadway portraits, the exhibition gives viewers a glimpse into Spence's incredible talent as a photographer and artist, and into the fascinating quirks of human behaviour one can sense in her portraits.

As I was walking around the exhibit in the silence of the gallery, I was overwhelmed by the power of the 75 photographs and the emotions they portray. It is rare to experience art that reveals the depths of human nature in such an authentic manner.

The exhibition features Spence's photographs of her family and her friends in the local art community. Because she is an activist, volunteer and artist in countless artistic organizations, she has come to know, and been able to photograph, many people in the community. While it might seem as if one has to know the people in the images to understand what each photo is trying to say, that is not the case at all. Spence captures kind eyes, steely personalities, warm faces and self-confidence in the faces and body language of each person. The simplicity of the frame and shot allows those personalities and feelings to reveal themselves.

Connections within families are another theme in Spence's work. Families are photographed together, sometimes in triptychs or diptychs, with their bodies and emotions changing from one frame to another. In Minnie, Anna and Amy, 2008, the viewers are invited to witness the personalities and relationships among three generations of women. The three images show the strong and loving connections among the women, while exposing the independent spirit they all possess.

Spence's documentation of the residents of the neighbourhood of West Broadway is also included in the exhibition. As noted on the description beside the series, this body of work marks a difficult time in Spence's life, as she was scrutinized and negatively criticized for these portraits as being exploitative of the community when they were shown in the late 1990s. Was it an unfair glorification? Or was it another variation of the community portraits on which Spence was working? The interpretation of these works is up to the viewer. The people and places in this series explore a diverse community, allowing the depth of the people who live within it to come to the surface -- gang signs and all.

The written introduction on the entrance to the exhibition states: "Spence's images are a culmination of the modern artistic interest in the individual." Her work invites viewers to gaze deeply and thoughtfully into strangers' eyes and ponder their personality and being.

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Art Review

Pictures of Me - Sheila Spence

Winnipeg Art Gallery

300 Memorial Blvd.

To Feb. 15

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 9, 2008 D3