Artist Reception: January 7th | 6-8pm

For our winter exhibition, Themes + Projects presents, “Love & Kisses, George” by Brigitte Carnochan.

This new series by Carnochan, was inspired by a set of found love letters written between 1929-1932 by George Daniels, a bank official for the Royal Bank of Canada in New York City, to Edna Josephine MacInnis, a nursing student at Columbus Hospital. The letters, all from George, trace the story of two young people introduced by mutual friends. They begin seeing each other. They fall in love. They have doubts. They write each other at least once every day. Before George goes on vacation, Edna asks him to destroy her letters so his roommates won’t read them (he does) and she keeps all his letters.

In this series, Carnochan creates platinum palladium photographs of her imagined “Ednas” to respond to excerpts from the letters that she believes Edna might have singled out. Edna was a modern woman. She smoked and wore make-up (which George worries about telling his mother), she loved to dance, she voiced her romantic expectations, she wanted a career. In addition to the photographs by Carnochan, she also utilizes the letters in her mixed media pieces, thematically connecting them to the platinum palladium photographs.