My name is Cobi Timmermans (1999), and I am a contemporary Canadian artist located on the unceded, traditional territory of the Semá:th peoples. I am a photographer who uses my medium to slow down, take a step back from busy life, and sit with moments and subjects that might otherwise be overlooked. The process of developing and printing photographs from film is slow and meditative, reflecting my conceptual foundation. My subject matter comes from my surroundings, such as shadows cast by leaves, dried flowers in my garden, my body, and the architecture of my childhood home. Some of my photographs become a series of prints. Others are pushed into collage or delicate installations made of projections and hanging fabrics that reference the domestic. My practice explores how familiar imagery, material, light, and texture can hold or evoke feelings of nostalgia, memory, home, and comfort. These themes, which are rooted in the human condition, make the viewer an integral part of the work, especially in my installations, which invite the viewer in, using scale and space, to walk among its elements. Through methods of abstraction, such as fragmentation, my work asks the viewer to slow down and look longer at the images to find their meaning. Though primarily a photographer, I am one of several contemporary multidisciplinary artists who are exploring the physical boundaries of photography and pushing the medium into space, material, and experience.[1]
[1] “Image/Object: New Approaches to Three-Dimensional Photography,” The Reach Gallery Museum, accessed January 16, 2023, https://thereach.ca/exhibition/image-object-new-approaches-to-three-dimensional-photography/.
