General Hardware Contemporary is pleased to present Brooklyn-based Canadian photographer Stacey Tyrells solo exhibition Backra Bluid as a featured exhibition for Scotiabank CONTACT photography festival.

Stacey Tyrell is a photo-based artist who's work predominantly deals with themes of identity, race and heritage as it pertains to post-colonial societies and the Caribbean Diaspora.

In Backra Bluid, Tyrell portrays herself as a white woman by altering her skin colour and making subtle tweaks to her features. Backra is archaic Caribbean slang of West African origin that means white person. Bluid is the Scotch word for blood, as well as for kin. In this series Tyrell draws on her own family historyarchaic and ongoing, Scottish and Caribbeanto explore how identities complicate and overlap. Critical of the dualism inherent in Eurocentric constructs of Whiteness and Blackness, Tyrells work suggests that most people in post-colonial societies are not easily categorized. Developed through fictitious avatars and dramatic sets, her approach privileges performance and theatricality.

Tyrell studied photography at the Ontario College of Art and Design. In 2012, she was chosen by Magenta Foundations Flash Forward as a top emerging Canadian photographer. Her work has appeared in exhibitions at the Royal Ontario Museum, the Canadian Museum for Immigration at Pier 21, and at the Center for Photography in Woodstock, NY. Tyrells images are included in the collections of Heritage Canada and Montreal Arts Interculturels and have been published in Pictures from Paradise: A Survey of Contemporary Caribbean Photographers, Canadian Art Magazine, ARC Magazine, Prefix Photo, The Wondereur and Applied Arts Magazine.

During Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, Tyrells work will also appear in a Primary CONTACT exhibition Pictures from Paradise: A Survey of Contemporary Caribbean Photography at the Shipping Containers behind The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery. Based on the 2012 book of the same name by Robert & Christopher Publishers, the exhibition features the work of 18 contemporary photographers curated by Robert & Christopher editors Melanie Archer, Mariel Brown and Wedge director Kenneth Montague.

For additional information contact:

Niki Dracos, Director

416-821-3060

GENERAL HARDWARE CONTEMPORARY

1520 Queen Street West Toronto M6R 1A4

Hours: Wed - Sat 12 - 6 pm and by appointment

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