About J Dollard
photo by Sean Dewitt
An artist originally from Canso, Nova Scotia, Justina Dollard has been living and working in HRM for more than ten years.
Justina studied Fine Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design; currently Administrator of Veith Street Gallery.
Projects include a self-published books of illustrations and writing, watercolor and acrylic painting, modelling and photography, recycled fabric craft; an accomplished portrait artist who also creates other custom images.
Justina's email: [email protected]
Justina studied Fine Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design; currently Administrator of Veith Street Gallery.
Projects include a self-published books of illustrations and writing, watercolor and acrylic painting, modelling and photography, recycled fabric craft; an accomplished portrait artist who also creates other custom images.
Justina's email: [email protected]
U R B A N D E C A Y jULy 2012 JuLY 2012 URBA N DE C A Y UR BAND E CAY URBAN DECAY
Urban Decay was a visual record playfully highlighting the experience of exploring abandoned or destroyed spaces by photographer Sean Dewitt and painter Justina Dollard.
These spaces exist mostly in the Halifax Regional Municipality but also from other communities in Nova Scotia.
Discovering and investigating with a camera, Sean Dewitt considers his adventures into sometimes morbid and lonely spaces part of the benefit of creating the work. Sean uses a digital SLR, then sometimes edits the images with selective coloring in Photoshop. This effect makes the images of abandoned buildings and places more reverent, drawing attention to the isolation of the setting. Some of these photos were taken over the past several years and some specifically for Urban Decay over the past year.
Justina Dollard is a painter. For Urban Decay, Justina works both with Sean’s and her own images, going onsite to capture the neglected and ruined forms of both nature and human construction after it has been left for dead.
Urban Decay attempts to give the viewer a sense of seeing the sights normally left unseen. While examining the painting of Justina, the viewer is left to their own interpretation as the spaces are so foreign compared to the everyday well-kept worlds we all maintain and reside in. The images also challenge the viewer to take a second look that would be avoided and forgotten under usual circumstance. Sean’s photographs are often simple, framed with the SLR on-site and existing as they appeared. From these simple images, much mystery can be evoked. The images also reveal the undoing of human development, the in-between deconstructed state that is a necessary phase of life.
Both of the artists have shared lasting motivation to respectfully seek out and record destruction and decay. The abandonment and rebuilding of urban and suburban areas is an important part of the cycle during the growth of a city. Details that go unnoticed and discarded by others are remembered and analysed by the artists. Generations of building and rebuilding leave specific marks on interior and exterior spaces, and so the history of the space and the people who once resided there, then abandoned the space, can be gleaned from these images. These details are telling, usually alluding to a secret hiding habits and geography, economy and ecology. Justina and Sean hope to impress by revealing these secrets hidden within Nova Scotia.
These spaces exist mostly in the Halifax Regional Municipality but also from other communities in Nova Scotia.
Discovering and investigating with a camera, Sean Dewitt considers his adventures into sometimes morbid and lonely spaces part of the benefit of creating the work. Sean uses a digital SLR, then sometimes edits the images with selective coloring in Photoshop. This effect makes the images of abandoned buildings and places more reverent, drawing attention to the isolation of the setting. Some of these photos were taken over the past several years and some specifically for Urban Decay over the past year.
Justina Dollard is a painter. For Urban Decay, Justina works both with Sean’s and her own images, going onsite to capture the neglected and ruined forms of both nature and human construction after it has been left for dead.
Urban Decay attempts to give the viewer a sense of seeing the sights normally left unseen. While examining the painting of Justina, the viewer is left to their own interpretation as the spaces are so foreign compared to the everyday well-kept worlds we all maintain and reside in. The images also challenge the viewer to take a second look that would be avoided and forgotten under usual circumstance. Sean’s photographs are often simple, framed with the SLR on-site and existing as they appeared. From these simple images, much mystery can be evoked. The images also reveal the undoing of human development, the in-between deconstructed state that is a necessary phase of life.
Both of the artists have shared lasting motivation to respectfully seek out and record destruction and decay. The abandonment and rebuilding of urban and suburban areas is an important part of the cycle during the growth of a city. Details that go unnoticed and discarded by others are remembered and analysed by the artists. Generations of building and rebuilding leave specific marks on interior and exterior spaces, and so the history of the space and the people who once resided there, then abandoned the space, can be gleaned from these images. These details are telling, usually alluding to a secret hiding habits and geography, economy and ecology. Justina and Sean hope to impress by revealing these secrets hidden within Nova Scotia.