Diaz Contemporary

Dara Gellman


margyrye - 2012 3:29 looping digital video Hand fabricated 3” replica pearl, wood, acrylic paint, varnish, on mdf plinth (5’ x 1’ x 4’) 32 lumens mini projector


margyrye (detail) - 2012 3:29 looping digital video Hand fabricated 3” replica pearl, wood, acrylic paint, varnish, on mdf plinth (5’ x 1’ x 4’) 32 lumens mini projector


margyrye (detail) - 2012 3:29 looping digital video Hand fabricated 3” replica pearl, wood, acrylic paint, varnish, on mdf plinth (5’ x 1’ x 4’) 32 lumens mini projector


margyrye (detail) - 2012 3:29 looping digital video Hand fabricated 3” replica pearl, wood, acrylic paint, varnish, on mdf plinth (5’ x 1’ x 4’) 32 lumens mini projector


spotte - 2012 Digital print mounted on acrylic substrate Diptych, 3” diameter Edition of 3


From left to right: pearlpixel, pearlcasting, dreamvision - 2012 Archival inkjet prints on paper 40” x 60” each Edition of 3 each


pearlpixel (detail) - 2012 Archival inkjet print on paper 40” x 60” Edition of 3


pearlcasting (detail) - 2012 Archival inkjet print on paper 40” x 60” Edition of 3


dreamvision (detail) - 2012 Archival inkjet print on paper 40” x 60” Edition of 3

pearlmaiden (installation view) - 2012
12:12 looping digital video projection in 16:9 format, with sound composition by Andrew Zealley.
Projected onto 12’ x 7’ hand fabricated pearl screen, made of 500,000 4mm Japanese replica pearls and spring steel wire.
Installation view at Diaz Contemporary 2012

pearlmaiden is a video installation work composed of three main elements - a continuously looping video projection, a composed audio soundscape, and a floating projection screen constructed entirely from replica pearls, where each pixel in the screen size ratio is represented by a single pearl. Adapted experimentally from the fourteenth century medieval text Pearl, this work delves into an ongoing fascination with the (literary) pearl and the video screen as transformative metaphorical objects; the pearl, as it engages with notions of the female/the feminine, and that has a specific correspondence with the eye and the pixel, and the screen, which is circumscribed by both, all transforming into the liminal space of dream objects and images that dissolve in a flux of transmutation, transgression and multiplicity.

pearlmaiden was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and was produced in part during the 2010 Banff New Media Institute Liminal Screen Co-Production Residency.

pearlmaiden (installation view) - 2012
Looping video projection installation, with pixel-pearl screen and soundtrack, composed by Andrew Zealley.


pearlmaiden (detail) - 2012 Looping video projection installation, with pixel-pearl screen and soundtrack, composed by Andrew Zealley.


pearlmaiden (detail) - 2012 Looping video projection installation, with pixel-pearl screen and soundtrack, composed by Andrew Zealley.

Reaching Out - 2011
Single channel video projection with stereo sound, 8-minute loop
Four MDF projection screens, 28” diameter (11’4” total width)

Installation view of With the Void @ Diaz Contemporary 2011

One part of a dyad of video and installation works, this four-channel video projection installation on floating circular screens invokes a lush dreamscape through four visual elements - the pearl, the hand, the double, and the mirror / image. Adapted from numerous texts describing the metaphorical potential of these four elements, the images in this work uncannily express concepts of equivalence and multiplicity, troubling the certainty of objects and representations as they slide across planes of meaning.


Reaching Out - 2011 Single channel video projection with stereo sound, 8-minute loop Four MDF projection screens, 28” diameter (11’4” total width) Installation view of With the Void @ Diaz Contemporary 2011


Reaching Out - 2011 Single channel video projection with stereo sound, 8-minute loop Four MDF projection screens, 28” diameter (11’4” total width) Installation view of With the Void @ Diaz Contemporary 2011


Reaching Out (detail) - 2011 Single channel video projection with stereo sound, 8-minute loop Four MDF projection screens, 28” diameter (11’4” total width) Installation view of With the Void @ Diaz Contemporary 2011

aura - 2010
Installation, with looping video projection and sound

Inspired by a sequence from a Dario Argento film where a young woman takes apart a vhs videotape, the images in this video projection installation were created by using the surface of vhs videotape itself as a reflective screen. Captured from the surface of the videotape, the inverted and compressed images were then projected again in the same physical ratio as the original videotape but on much larger scale. Projected into the interior of a horizontal screen embedded within the wall itself, the moving, abstracted video projection appears pseudo-anamorphic, delaying recognition and emphasizing the inherent codification and indecipherability of images.


aura - 2010 Installation, with looping video projection and sound

Nothing Else Visible - 2008
Installation with live image and sound, circular black glass mirror, mechanical device, 10,000 Japanese replica pearls

This installation is adapted from a scene from an Alain Robbe-Grillet novel. Every minute, a single glistening pearl is released from a hidden mechanism, dropping to the centre of a circular black glass mirror, meeting its own image double with a resonant punctum of sound. Over the duration of the work’s exhibition, 10,000 pearls accumulate; as more and more pearls descend, they move around the space as they collide with the walls and each other, providing a constantly shifting terrain of movement, accretion, and sound.


Nothing Else Visible (detail) - 2008 Installation with live image and sound, circular black glass mirror, mechanical device, 10,000 Japanese replica pearls


Nothing Else Visible (detail) - 2008 Installation with live image and sound, circular black glass mirror, mechanical device, 10,000 Japanese replica pearls