ALEX GIBSON: A hound marks its spot

ALEX GIBSON
A hound marks its spot

Opening reception: Thurs, Apr 3, 2025, 6-8PM
Exhibition: Apr 3 – May 24, 2025
Hours: Tues – Sat, 12-5 PM

Wil Aballe
1375 Railspur Alley, Vancouver, BC

For inquiries please contact Wil Aballe, wil@waapart.com

With the global rise of fascism, this body of photographic objects examines dynamics of power and submission through puppy play to subvert ongoing systems of oppression. A hound marks its spot disrupts a capitalist framework of labour, production, and intellect, through a queer lens of play and territory.

In his text A dog worries a bone, and other thoughts, artist and writer Matthew Lax notes that human pups “have freed themselves of the bounds of body, gender, and most importantly, work. Pups often speak of pupspace, the psychology and state of being pup, a place free of external pressures, deadlines, trauma, societal expectations and the demands of capitalism.”

By interrogating how the subversion of power dynamics found in “pupspace” emerges in various film, contemporary art, and pop cultural sources, the works in this exhibition present themselves as fragmented photographs embedded within resin. Mounted on traditional hardware materials such as plywood, steel, drywall (some found and repurposed from construction sites), the forms reflect modes of construction and labour, while the images toy at questions of play, control, desire, and destruction within an image.

Like the way a dog marks its territory, the images in A hound marks its spot absorb resin which is poured upon them, taking on a wet and fluid quality. The photographs position a dialogue between human/non-human participants who engage in activities of work/play, to rupture capitalist narratives of dominance/submission.

ALEX GIBSON (b. 1994, Barbados) is a queer artist who filters digital and material processes to generate imagery, and archive ephemera through image making, video, and installation. They work with and through images as sites to examine queer space, temporality, and geopolitical environments, often using found photographs, objects, and appropriated media to reference existing networks. Gibson’s work has been exhibited in Barbados, Canada, Italy, Poland, and the United States of America. They hold an MFA from the University of British Columbia, and are based on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations (Vancouver, BC).

This exhibition is part of the 2025 Capture Photography Festival Selected Exhibitions Program.