Brendan Stade

Patterned Gestures illustrates Brendan Stade's street photography, recording everyday life through chanced images. The exhibition consists of five photographs that collectively offer the viewer pattern in ordinary moments, through gestures. This reflection should stay with the viewer as they experience the exhibition, thinking deeply about how people digest and interact with this body of work, and if the pattern repeats itself.

Stade, a third-year photography student often shoots alone for two to four hours at a time, walking the streets of Toronto in search of a scene or a moment to capture. This is the first time these photographs are being exhibited.

 All five photographs exhibited are shot on film, picked up in 2019, this is Stade’s preferred method. With the use of film photography, it is crucial to acknowledge the tedious nature of the single shot. Such attention contributes to the presented idea on chanced images, which suggests a kind of rarity to having a pattern. It is not that Stade intentionally makes work with pattern in mind, rather pattern happens naturally between his images. In fact, he gestures, what kind of meaning does a photographed-passing moment hold? What kind of exchange happens between the viewer and the stranger? A pattern most recognizable in this body of work, is people, more specifically their gestures. Pay close attention to the hands and body language in relation to the urban landscape- it reveals a part of the stranger captured, offering space for interpretative meaning. This kind of pattern may be coincidental, yet to be displayed among one another, dialogue is created between the viewer, the strangers captured, and the photographer.

Patterned Gestures is relevant and necessary to exhibit because it offers the viewer perspective. A moment to look closely at an image and find a subjective pattern, to ponder the scene and the exchange taking place, between the captured and themselves.

Curated by RW

Ada Slaight Gallery

Thank you, W Faris, B Stade, and KV Rangel