Territories: Brenda Francis Pelkey

Brenda Francis Pelkey’s photographs function as an exploration of social geographies; an expansion into the spaces where women are typically not allowed to go. Her images frequently deal with the eerie beauty of floodlit forests at night, where, rather than adopting the historically masculine lens that excludes women from the social scene of night-time, Pelkey positions the space as a place where women are present and have a voice. Pelkey is known also for her expansion of the public understanding of what documentary photography can do; her images of forests at night-time evoke thoughts of the enchanted forests of childhood stories as much as they reveal the crisp reality of the natural forms they depict. Brenda Francis Pelkey is edited by Catherine Mastin, Director of The Art Gallery of Windsor, and accompanies the first major showing of Francis Pelkey’s work at The AGW, with this then touring to several other venues across Canada throughout 2017-2018, including Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery (22 April-6 August 2017) and Art Gallery of Peterborough (9 September-12 November 2017).