Wall is a photographer known for creating back-lit narrative photographs. Though appearing straightforward, he does sometimes experiment with photo-manipulation and elaborate production. His work ranges from pieces rich in implication, like compassion in A Woman with a Covered Tray (2003) and desperation in Insomnia (1994) to others that resemble well-worked theatrical productions of Gregory Crewdson, like his 1992 piece The Giant and After the Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the Preface, created in 1999.

Other photographs manage to dodge the focus of humans and enter a realm that is more abstract, like the putrid and bland room captured in the 2003 photograph A Wall in a Former Bakery and the near-indecipherable darkly splattered mess of a corner of an art studio in Staining Bench, Furniture Manufacturer’s, Vancouver taken in 2003.

Awards include The Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award for Art Photography, the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography as well as the Roswitha Haftmann Prize for Visual Arts. He has extensive teaching experience having taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Simon Frasier University in British Columbia, and the University of British Columbia. He is an established author and critic as well.

Grosenic, Uta. Art Now: Vol 2. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006.

Jeff Wall at Marion Goodman New York, February 23 – March 22, 2008 [ArtObserved]

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