FRANCES LEEMING at Vtape

In the Vtape Video Salon
FRANCES LEEMING

Genetic Admiration
DVD, 2005, 23:00

March 4 - April 13, 2006
Opening Saturday, March 4, 2006 1-5PM
Artist's talk Saturday March 4, 2:00PM

With her collage animation Genetic Admiration, Frances Leeming has given us a work of dark humour and rare visual pleasure. It is replete with images drawn from the high modernity of the 20th century: representations of the nuclear family, of "fun centres" such as fairgrounds and midways, of iconic Hollywood heartthrobs, and finally of science as the new god - or at least with god-like powers. Her technique - which is more Hannah Hoch and John Heartfield than Photoshop - never smoothes the seams of the cuts that allow her flattened figures and landscapes to move about. It is precisely these visible "cuts" that produce the suture effect permeating the work. It is here - in the inevitable and unhealed suture - that Leeming shows us the reversal of modernism's 20th century. In spite of all our faith in "progress" and "the possible", things may not be going in just one direction after all. The mirror is both a reflection and a pool. Having plunged into biological reproduction with the zeal of an assembly line manager, our species may well have invented our own credible ending.

But in spite of the serious content, Leeming's adept eye for detail, her mordant humour and the wealth of her material - drawn from old Life magazines, posters and books, and finally from the archives of the Canadian National Exhibition - propel Genetic Admiration into a provocative - and hilarious - critique of both Big Science and Big Ideas.

Frances Leeming's performance and film projects explore the relationship between gender, technology and consumerism. Her work has been presented and exhibited across Canada, the U.S., Britain and Poland and has been purchased by such institutions as the National Gallery of Canada, California Institute for the Arts and broadcast on PBS (US), Channel Four (UK), SBS (Australia) and the Women's Television Network (Canada). In 2005, Genetic Admiration was awarded the grand prize at the Images Festival in Toronto. She teaches in the Department of Film Studies, Queen's University, Kingston.

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