GCTC's Fritzi Gallery presents:

Nicole Crozier is an emerging artist, currently in her third year of the BFA program at the University of Ottawa. She currently works in the media of both photography and painting. Her work will be hanging in the Lorraine Fritzi Yale Gallery starting May 22. 

In regards to her work in dialogue with Circle Mirror Transformation she says, “In Annie Baker’s play, the characters participation in the class exercises migrates from simply acting them out to them becoming a means of revealing each individual’s own personal drama. The characters become intimately more connected as the play goes on. This made me think about how our first impressions of others are only fragments of their actual selves. In a similar way our own self-perception is also fragmented: we will never know how we appear to others. For this reason I thought my work done with scanners in which I distort the surface of the human face would be appropriate to showcase alongside the play.”

A Q&A with Fritzi Artist, Nicole Crozier

1. What is your personal reaction to the play?
One thing I did find interesting about the play is it’s psychodramatic nature- the characters personal lives change and transform throughout the play in the same way that they externally transform themselves and their bodies through the acting exercises. The characters start out as flat, 2D and then round out and become move 3D more life like as the play develops and the audience is given more insight into who these people are.

2.Why are you suited to create art for this play?
I think as a photographer I am well suited to create art for this play in that it’s storyline corresponds with my own interest in interpersonal relationships, with what personal secrets we are willing to share and which we guard and keep for ourselves. Also, Annie Baker seems interested in how to create a portrait of someone, well of multiple people- how do you represent someone, what can you reveal and what can you not reveal. This is something I am very interested in as well. Whether on stage or in an image you hang on wall, as an artist how do you transform a flat, 2D character cut out into a round, fleshed out 3D person that is believable/ that the viewer can feel some connection with or can relate to. How do you move past the surface and get inside?

3. Which of your pieces work particularly well in interpreting this play?
No single piece is better at interpreting the play than any of the others as they all work together as part of a series. Each piece expands upon and confirms the kind of dream-like state/ expression of the other portraits.

4. Is there anything about your medium/ working methods you would like to highlight?
I would like to highlight my reason for using scanography to create this series. Usually the photograph is used to capture someone’s image, his or her external look or appearance. I wanted my models to have a much more personal relationship with the camera, something the scanner allows me to do in that it requires the person’s face to be squished right up next to the glass surface. This combined with the fact that the act of scanning removes the person from any kind of context along with the distortions I was able to achieve given the stop and go manner in which my scanner works enabled me to create portraits that are more about the person’s psychological state rather than their appearance.