Tag: Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – LIFE SAVERS

LIFE SAVERS, 2022 by Leslie HossackLife Savers
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

“When I was growing up, candies such as jelly beans and Life Savers were a colourful treat. A roll of Life Savers could often be found tucked away in Grandma’s purse or hidden inside a Christmas stocking. In the 1950s, Life Savers came in five flavours: lemon, pineapple, orange, lime and cherry. The image here, Life Savers, is inspired by memories of the paper wrapper that surrounded the tin foil cylinder of candies – the only candies with the hole in the middle.” 

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
30 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca   18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – CATALOGUE

CATALOGUE, 2022 by Leslie HossackCatalogue
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

“One of my core recollections involves lying on the living room rug, night after night, pouring over the latest mail order catalogues. From them I learned about the link between colour and language. As a young girl growing up in the 1950s, I was thrilled to discover that twin sweater sets could be ordered in cherry red or peacock blue. Peacock blue – such an exotic name, such an electric colour! I informed my mother that I would simply die if I could not have a peacock blue sweater. I still clearly remember the page in the catalogue that featured the exquisite colours of cherry red and peacock blue. This was the inspiration for the image shown above, Catalogue.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
36 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca   18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – THE WEDDING

THE WEDDING, 2022 by Leslie HossackThe Wedding
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

“When I was six years old, my aunt announced her engagement. The wedding was to take place a week after my seventh birthday, and I was to be the flower girl. I was thrilled. This was my first close encounter with love & marriage. During all the excitement of the months of planning, I felt like I was living in a fairy tale. One of the highlights was the fact that I was to wear a floor length dress just like my mother who was the matron of honour and the two bridesmaids. I loved my flower girl dress, although I was a little disappointed with the colour. It was a pale orange, just like the bridesmaids’ dresses. Matters were only made worse when I was told that the colour was not orange but shrimp! Perhaps that colour was fashionable in the 1950s, but I was not amused. To this day, I clearly remember that shade of orange, and I still do not like it. We are shaped by the colours that surrounded us in our formative years, both positively and negatively. The colour shrimp is as much a part of me as my physical DNA.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
30 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca   18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – TELEPHONE

TELEPHONE, 2022 by Leslie HossackTelephone
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

“This image was inspired by the first telephone I remember as a young child. There was only one phone in the house and it was a landline. It was also a party line, meaning that two households shared the same line. Each house had a different ring tone, so you knew who the incoming call was intended for. However, if you picked up the phone to call out and the other party was already on the line, you could hear their conversation. In the 1950s, telephones were black, with a heavy handset and a slow rotary dial. Long distance calls were very expensive so they were rare and kept as short as possible. Residential phones were used for significant communications and treated with reverence.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
36 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca   18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – JELL-O

JELL-O, 2022 by Leslie HossackJell-o
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

This body of work, CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION, is an abstract autobiography inspired by childhood memories of colour. It explores the premise that we are all shaped by the colours that surrounded us in our formative years.

“Jell-o was inspired by early memories of my favourite everyday dessert. In the 1950s, it was available in six flavours: cherry, strawberry, raspberry, lemon, orange and lime. No matter the flavour, the fruity taste was refreshing. And the colour! In a glass bowl, the translucent look of the saturated colour of jell-o was magical, and the smooth texture was so satisfying. That is unless it was ruined by the addition of sliced bananas or a tin full of drained Fruit Cocktail. The only thing worse was a “jell-o salad” containing slices of celery, cucumber and stuffed olives. As a child, the sole welcome addition to this wobbly delight of a dessert was a dollop of whipped cream on top.”   

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
30 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca   18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – REGALIA

REGALIA, Ottawa 2022 by Leslie HossackRegalia
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

Regalia was inspired by Queen Elizabeth’s 1953 coronation.

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
36 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca   18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – WINTER

WINTER, 2022 by Leslie HossackWinter
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

This new body of work, CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION, is an abstract autobiography inspired by childhood memories of colour.

ABOVE: “Winter was inspired by early memories of a striped wool blanket. Here in Canada, the hot summers and cold winters make seasonal changes of clothing and bedding an annual ritual. Every autumn when I was very small, my mother replaced the light summer covers on my bed with a heavy wool blanket. During the long nights and bright days of winter, the colours of that blanket entered my soul where they remain to this day.”

PRINTS
Chromogenic print mounted on aluminum composite panel
30 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at
StudioSixtySix.ca   18 August – 24 September, 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – PRINT CATALOGUE

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION Book Cover by Leslie Hossack
 

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION – New Publication Now Available
© 2022 Leslie Hossack

“My latest publication CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION features 22 full-page colour reproductions. This series explores the premise that colour is autobiographical. The images present a colour-coded record of my childhood, as unique as my physical DNA. I learned about colours through concrete objects: crayons, clothes, mail order catalogues and so on. This collection was inspired by early memories of the 1950s, an analogue world. By contrast, the creation of this work was completely digital.”

Signed catalogues available at TheCommotion.ca
Constructed Recollection catalogue consist of 44 pages and measures 11.8 x 9 in.

INDIVIDUAL PRINTS
Chromogenic prints mounted on aluminum composite panel.
30/36 x 24 in.

CONSTRUCTED RECOLLECTION: An Abstract Autobiography – Childhood Colour Coded.

Selected images from Constructed Recollection featured in solo exhibition at:
StudioSixtySix.ca     18 August – 24 September 2023.

To view more work by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.ca

ABOUT Leslie Hossack

Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916)

1904, Hammershøi, Interior with Four Etchings, photo by Leslie HossackInterior with Four Etchings (1904)
Collection: Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

1910, Sunshine in the Drawing Room photograph by Leslie HossackSunshine in the Drawing Room (1910)
Collection: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

photographs © 2019 Leslie Hossack

In 2020, governments the world over declared: “Stay-at-home. Work-at-home.” More than a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) elevated this edict to a lifestyle and an art form.

In 2015, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (AGO) acquired Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi’s painting Interior with Four Etchings (1904). This was the first time one of his works entered a public collection in Canada. Then, in 2017, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (NGC) acquired Sunshine in the Drawing Room  (1910).

To find out more about Vilhelm Hammershøi’s Sunshine in the Drawing Room at the NGC and how it inspired Leslie Hossack’s current series, please see the article in The National Gallery of Canada Magazine titled “Hammershøi to Hossack: Inspiration and Resources.”

Leslie Hossack photographed two paintings by Hammershøi in 2019 as they hung in situ, in Ottawa and Toronto. Hossack wrote: “I stood before these paintings transfixed. I was besotted. I was smitten.” And so began her quest to photograph his works abroad. The resulting “100 Hammershøis by Hossack” are featured here on Haute Vitrine.

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of portraits, nudes, landscapes, architecture and interiors, but it is his interiors, like the two shown above, that were most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com

Hammershøi: The National Gallery of Canada

1901, Interior with Piano and Woman in Black by Leslie HossackInterior with Piano, Woman in Black. From the Artist’s Home at Strandgade 30 (1901)
Collection: Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen

1907, Interior with Cabinet Sofa. Interior by Leslie HossackInterior with Cabinet Sofa (1907)
Collection: Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen

1910, Interior with Seated Woman by Leslie HossackInterior with Seated Woman (c. 1910)
Collection: Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen

1913, The Tall Windows. Interior from the Artist's Home by Leslie HossackThe Tall Windows. Interior from the Artist’s Home, Strandgade 25 (1913)
Collection: Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen

1914, The Four Rooms by Leslie HossackThe Four Rooms. Interior from the Artist’s Home, Strandgade 25 (1914)
Collection: Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen

all photographs © 2018 Leslie Hossack

In 2018, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (NGC) hosted an exhibition entitled Impressionist Treasures, featuring works from the Ordrupgaard Museum, Copenhagen. Among the 76 paintings were several from the Danish Golden Age, including five interiors by Vilhelm Hammershøi.

Leslie Hossack photographed these Hammershøi works as they hung in situ, in the NGC. Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi and his wife Ida lived in an apartment at Strandgade 30 in Copenhagen from 1898 to 1909. Then from 1909 to 1913, they lived at Bredgade 25. Finally the couple moved to Strandgade 25, where they remained until Vilhelm’s death in 1916. The first two images above reveal the interior of Strandgade 30 while the last two show the inside of the artist’s apartment at Strandgade 25.

Hossack wrote: “One enters Hammershøi’s private home, moves around his physical space and then slowly encounters one’s own soul… His genius is to seem to deal with the domestic while all the while dealing with the universal.”

Hammershøi’s oeuvre consists of portraits, nudes, landscapes, architecture and interiors, but it is his interiors, like the five shown above, that were the most popular in his lifetime (1864-1916) and continue to draw the strongest response today. Hammershøi painted over 100 interiors in the various apartments he shared with his wife Ida in Copenhagen. Their home was both his studio and a major motif in his work.

Over a century ago, Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi elevated
“Stay At Home. Work At Home.” to an art form.

Leslie Hossack’s Hammershøi Photographs are part of a larger body of work that explores Hitler’s Berlin, Stalin’s Moscow, Mussolini’s Rome, Churchill’s London, contested sites in Jerusalem, the NATO Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during WWII, the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy, the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands, Scotland’s Freemasons and Sigmund Freud’s Vienna.

To view more photographs by Leslie Hossack, please visit lesliehossack.com