My work is an examination of queer identity, love, loss, desire, and emotion. It is a method to explore my relationship to time and history as well as inform an encounter with the absent body and a dialogue that echoes outside of time. I see my work as a demonstration of acts of silent rebellion, the absent queer body, and a documentation of anticipation. In my work you will encounter light, found photographs, blue jeans, absent go-go dancer platforms, leather jackets, white shirts, voices, flowers, and notes.

During my residency my intention is to seek out and examine the queer spaces of Toronto island and respond to these locations and the notion of an encounter. During this time my intention is to explore this idea of encountering text or image as if you are encountering another person or lover, similar to cruising for sex. Recently I’ve become enamoured with my relationship to queer genealogy and to the fact that much of it no longer remains or has become fragmented. Well known cruising parks or queer spaces have become gentrified and the queer bodies that once sought those areas of pleasure or comradeship often have disappeared. This has led me to unpack my relationship to a past I was not present for, and question what it means to come after.

~~~

Ryan Danny Owen is a recent graduate from the Alberta college of Art and Design in 2017 and is an artist and writer based in Calgary, Alberta. His work reveals notions of identity, love, loss, desire and time. In his project Mirrors and Windows, Owen works to form a growing archive of collected images of men from the mid 50’s to late 80’s, these photographs act as ruin and memorial due to their proximity to the AIDS crisis. His work examines his relationship to the past and question what it means to come after.