The photographs for this series were created while navigating through downtown Toronto alleys late at night. The experience is an aura of silence, of desertion, of mystery. Every step reveals a new story. As I voyage, with friends I would use as figures against these graffiti backdrops, I'm confronted by walls and doorways that expose fragments of despair and loneliness, images of isolation and of people divided between the physical world and the limitless surface of our imagination. Characters of our dreams enveloped in intriguing detail and colour tell tales of the urban artist and our society.
The internal existence of the artist is one that releases us from the cruelties of our material lives and allows us to live freely in the moment while supplying hope for a better future. Through these photographs, I hope to entice the viewer to interpret the relationship between the figures and the environments they encapsulate.
What is real?
The images in this series, made in surreal locations on Queen St. West in Toronto, pay homage to the spray can masters of today. A walk through and one soon realizes these are indeed alleys of hope.
