Tout’s Well That Ends Well for Tim Barber

 

It’s not often that a girl with lavender hair transforms into a ghost before your eyes. Julia Burlinghan does just that in Tim Barber‘s latest solo show, Tout Va Bien. Selections from two series of snapshot-style photographs, “Mystic Heather” and “Virgin Snow,” it is currently on view at 107 Shaw Gallery in Toronto. Of the esoteric titles, the artist says, “‘Mystic Heather’ and ‘Virgin Snow’ are the names of the two Manic Panic hair dyes that we mixed together to make Julia’s hair that amazing lavender color.” Shot over a period of three days, the photos are at once explicit in their physicality and ephemeral in theme, and very much about an infatuated photographer and his muse. Burlingham is, in fact, Barber’s ex-girlfriend: “I wanted to make a strange fairy tale about a strange girl,” he explains. “I think she is a ghostly punk, or a punky ghost. The first time I met her she was wearing a homemade ghost costume, full hood and all, and it wasn’t Halloween.”

TOUT VA BIEN IS ON VIEW THROUGH MARCH 3. 107 SHAW IS LOCATED AT 107 SHAW STREET, TORONTO.