Tim Roda Trajectory

There’s been lots of talk in the Blogosphere about Roger Ballen’s bewitching speech at the New York Photo Fest extravaganza. If there was only one reason I’m sorry I missed the festival this would be it (and Tim Barber’s show, by all accounts, would not). Roger’s work is so magical and scary. Let’s consider this from his series Shadow Chamber:

and this from his series Platteland:

and because I’m into Still Life these days, this:

Oh yes, it’s a little bit Ralph Meatyard (big fan):

Why sure, it’s a little bit Joel Peter-Witkin (I overdosed on him in the 90′s so not such a big fan anymore). Mother of the Future:

But it’s also quite Tim Roda who is showing right now as part of the Contact Festival at the Angell Gallery. I stumbled into the gallery, post-Sanguinetti-talk a couple of weeks ago and discovered a bunch of this:

In his own words, Tim’s work is “filled with reverberations of [my] own memories of childhood and family traditions.” And I love the idea that he and his son are forever stuck in this surreal and hard world, where they toil, (yes toil) in a eerily threatening space. But that threat is countered, for me, by the security of connection between father and son and family as a whole. They are in this mad world together: they often look resigned and not threatened.

It’s a family endeavour- Tim stages these set-ups (often with his son) and then his wife takes the picture. I am so interested lately in this new father-as-photographer character- Timothy Archibald’s ongoing series on his son is lovely (see his recent and brief interpretation of Roger Ballen’s work via reference to JPW ). Tim Roda’s familial work is much less straightforward but hints to traditional roles of masculinity and fatherhood.

I love the roughness too of these images, and yet they are so completely conceived. The “practical” hanging utility lights remind me of my own early scavenged lighting kit- how clever and contextual to use real fixtures to light the scene from within the scene. And the ragged edges of the print and the chunky grain too, seem just an apt extension of the rough materials with which Tim populates his scene. This of course jives with the overall rawness of the scene itself. I am partial to a successful match of style and substance.

Tim’s show closes this weekend at Angell Gallery so check it out before it’s too late. If you miss it, why not satiate yourself with a bit of Winnipeg’s own Guy Maddin. This is from Tales of the Gimli Hospital:

We’ve gone through an interesting trajectory, Roger Ballen to Guy Maddin via Tim Roda but I think the comparisons hold.