Photography to the amateur is recreation, to the professional it is work, and hard work too, no matter how pleasurable it may be.
- Edward Weston

This exhibition grew from a desire to create a digital manifestation of a belief. The belief was that truly extraordinary artworks occasionally appear effortless and easily consumable to the viewer. The images that comprise this exhibition serve as a reminder of the countless hours spent in conception, preparation, and finally production of an artwork.

In their statements and of their respective works, both photographers grapple with fleeting and rare moments; yet these moments, occasionally have the power to resonate far beyond the split second it takes for the shutter lens to frame them. Incredibly, Add-Art is the perfect medium (in my opinion) for artworks that struggle to deal with these kinds of instances. Hopefully the glances that you sent into the corners of your monitor as a result of using Add-Art occasionally capture your attention beyond a fleeting moment. Ideally these works force a prolonged, contemplative stare of you and cause you to reflect back on yourself and the process that created them.
about the artists

Roger Cardiff and Mariam Magsi are two photographers based in Toronto, Canada. Cardiff’s images in this collection are all original photographs that have been digitally manipulated to the point of surrealism and dream-like states. Working in a variety of traditional and new media tools to achieve his vision, he creates his artwork to capture fleeting moments and once in a lifetime encounters. Mariam Magsi was born in Karachi, Pakistan and her works are shaped by the desire to meld and integrate two different systems of belief through photography, while attempting to deconstruct the “essence of nothingness”.

Ivan Tanzer is an independent curator and museum consultant based in Toronto, Canada. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Museum Studies programme, and this is his second exhibition with Add-Art.