TORONTO: Stacey Tyrell

Backra Bluid

April 26 – May 17, 2014

Opening reception: Saturday, April 26, 2014, 3:00pm to 6:00pm

GENERAL HARDWARE CONTEMPORARY

1520 Queen Street W

Toronto, Canada

From generalhardware.ca:

In Backra Bluid, Brooklyn-based photographer Stacey Tyrell portrays herself as a white woman by altering her skin color and making subtle tweaks to her features. Backra is archaic Caribbean slang of West African origin that means “white person.” Bluid is the Scotch word for blood, as well as for kin. In this series Tyrell, draws on her own family history – archaic and ongoing, Scottish and Caribbean – to explore how identities complicate and overlap. Critical of the dualism inherent in Eurocentric constructs of Whiteness and Blackness, Tyrell’s work suggests that most people in post-colonial societies are not easily categorized. Developed through fictitious avatars and dramatic sets, her approach privileges performance and theatricality.

Tyrell studied photography at the Ontario College of Art and Design. In 2012, she was chosen by Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward as a top emerging Canadian photographer. Her work has appeared in exhibitions at the Royal Ontario Museum, the Canadian Museum for Immigration at Pier 21, and at the Center for Photography in Woodstock, NY. Tyrell’s images are included in the collections of Heritage Canada and Montreal Arts Interculturels and have been published in magazines such as Canadian Art, ARC, Prefix Photo, Applied Arts and the book Pictures from Paradise: A Survey of Contemporary Caribbean Photographers.

Backra Bluid is a featured exhibition in conjunction with the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

AMSTERDAM: Stacey Tyrell

Stacey Tyrell, Backra Bluid (Bonnie, 35 yrs. and  Twins Lara and Maisie, 9 yrs.), 2011, Archival Epson print,  40 x 30 inches.
Image via gcs-art.eu. © Stacey Tyrell.

Backra Bluid

September 7 – October 19, 2013

GALLERY CULTURAL SPEECH™

Postjesweg 6-8

1027 EA Amsterdam

the Netherlands

Gallery Cultural Speech is proud to present the first solo exhibition by the Canadian photographer Stacey Tyrell in The Netherlands. Backra Bluid will be opened in the presence of the artist on September 7 at 18:00.

‘Backra’ is Caribbean slang, referring to ‘white master’ or ‘white person’. ‘Bluid’ is the Scottish word for blood and skin. As a black child attending a predominantly white school, Tyrell would find herself confronted with the proudly proclaimed Scottish, Irish and English heritage of her classmates. Whenever she mentions her own family ties with England, she is often met with uncomfortable looks. Her background reminds white people above all of the legacy of slavery. 

In Backra Bluid, Tyrell portraits herself as a white woman. Dressed up as a bored schoolgirl or as a rich lady, covered in fur with diamond earrings, Tyrell demonstrates that black and white people are really not so different. Apart from the color of their skin, that is.

The series The Great White Hope, also on view at Gallery Cultural Speech, shows beauty products with names as ‘Fair and Lovely’ and ‘White Beauty’. These pots, powders and tubes are supposed to whiten the skin. Tyrell: ‘Through their use it seems that any previous self-hating and self-doubt can be simply lightened or erased.’

Stacey Tyrell (1978 Toronto, Canada), studied photography at the Ontario College of Art and Design. In 2012 lash Forward chose her as one of the top Emerging Photographers in Canada. That same year she was granted the Ontario Arts Council Emerging Artist Grant.

Exhibit Link