Scott McFarland. Shacks+ Snow+ Streets+ Shrubs

Scott McFarland works at the point of transition between analog and digital technologies. Where analog photography is often discussed as a representation of a decisive moment, McFarland’s photographs are constructed from many images, taken at different times and under different conditions. The resulting composite images render familiar places and subjects visually complex through repetition and assemblage. His subtle manipulations of the photograph and use of tableau scale offer the viewer a new perspective on the photograph as a single moment in time. McFarland has expanded the subjects of his works in recent years from the large-scale tableaux gardens in Vancouver, for which he is perhaps best known, to winter scenes, cottage country outside the city and the urban street.

The most comprehensive book on Scott McFarland''s work to date, Snow, Shacks, Streets, Shrubs offers reproductions of several of McFarland’s recent large-scale, wide-format photographic series as well as a generous representation of his earlier series, including Boathouse (2002–2006), Gardens (2002–2006), Laboratory (2008–2009), Empire (2005–2007), Niagara (2009), Sans Souci (2010–2011), and Repatriation (2011–2014). This lavishly illustrated volume presents the artist’s sustained consideration of the history of photography and the sophisticated technical changes that the medium has undergone.

Accompanying the reproductions are essays by Kitty Scott, former curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario, independent curator and critic Urs Stahel, and a wide-ranging interview with McFarland by the American photographer James Welling.