Roberto Pellegrinuzzi’s projects have been informed from the start by the history and specificity of photography. References to intrinsically photographic qualities are implicit. Although he does not consider himself a photographer, he uses photography for the
possibilities it offers to capture reality.  Yet he also appreciates its capacity for transfor-mation — one only has to imagination how the choice of lens, shutter speed, and depth of field change the way we see things. Exploring these functions further, Pellegrinuzzi con-tinues testing, observing, and interrogating the photographic medium, attempting to develop strategies and systems that mimic these optical effects. In his most recent series, digital prints on very fine Japanese paper are used for this purpose.

This series consists of a landscape seemingly broken down into several framed elements that rebuild the picture. In each frame, the image is fractured into pieces that are in turn worked into several layers (3 or 4), such that, once superimposed, they reconstitute the image. Acrylic is applied to the fine paper prints of these layers to give them their trans-parency. Once assembled, the layers form a whole, thus creating depth (depth of field). Depending on one's position with respect to the frame, the image may seem either decon-structed into various fragments or reconstructed into a whole (anamorphosis). Motivating this installation is the constant play between the deconstructed image that reconstitutes itself and the set of frames that form the imaginary landscape.

The Toronto Islands are unusual, a Caroline forest filled with environmentally sensitive areas that offer a unique wilderness in the midst of a fast-paced and increasingly populated metropolis. The community that lives on the islands has historically acted as its custodian, protecting and fostering it while effectively incorporating the natural habitat into contemporary life. Over the years the landscape has changed slowly.  However, five years ago, beavers moved onto the islands and began to clear it of trees.  This was a natural process, not manmade, and it left the terrain visibly transformed.  The community’s reaction to this incursion was mixed and it raised an important question.  What determined an acceptable level of intervention in a natural environment, especially when that intervention was natural itself?

Documenting the destruction, April Hickox spent every day visiting those sites most affected by the beavers.  Stripped branches and cut boughs detailed their nightly escapades.  Some were mottled and chewed, others stripped white and clean as staves.  Trees were reduced to a miniature semblance of their former selves, gnawed and covered in scars.  In places the landscape was diminished to a collection of detached boughs, stumps and sculpted sticks.  Nothing remained as it once had been. 

By photographing the destruction of the forest one artifact at a time, Hickox isolates the sticks and boughs  — the remnants as it were  — from the general landscape and transforms the island’s disfigurement into evidence of beauty.  An ordinary object, the very thing that was ravaged, is dignified by her patient observation.  The destruction of the trees was an extraordinary event in the lives of a community.  April Hickox catalogues it quietly and intimately, engaging a rather unlikely subject to archive her wonder.