Tobi on the Red River, 2006. Pastel on paper, mounted on canvas, 34 x 28 inches (86.4 x 71.1 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York,Purchased with funds contributed by Ann and Steven Ames, with the support of the artist and 303 Gallery  2007.3. © 2006 Tim Gardner. Photo: Courtesy 303 Gallery, New York

Tim Gardner appropriates photographs, mainly of family and friends, in order to (re)present them in carefully executed watercolor or pastel compositions. Often enlarged from their source material for presentation on gallery walls, the resulting works examine a wide range of aesthetic and social concerns through a very personal “lens.” Photographs from the family archives that the artist has used to craft new images include depictions of the alcohol-induced exploits of his twenty-something siblings and friends as well as travel shots of Gardner family adventures through the mountains of North America. The carefree nature of the original photographs transformed by the painstaking detail of Gardner’s subsequent works recognizes memory as a system of representation while evoking rites of male and familial bonding. In a recent series executed in dialogue with the paintings collection at the National Gallery in London for his solo exhibition there, Gardner deepened his investigation of nature, revealing, through personal as well as advertising photographs, the “wilderness” to be a site as mediated and constructed as masculinity itself. In one pastel work from this series, Tobi on the Red River, Gardner restages his own snapshot of his little brother, replete with face-obscuring sunglasses and life vest, as they negotiate the great outdoors. Transforming the image from playful archive to work of high art, Gardner exposes the viewer to a fragile, personal act of remembering.

Kevin Lotery