A Requiem

Fifty black and white prints by Vancouver fine art photographer Robert Keziere will be exhibited in Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr College of Art and Design, March 15 through April 10, 1985. The suite of photographs, collectively titled A Requiem, have been selected from Keziere’s personal work accomplished on the Greek Island of Sifnos during the summers of 1982 and 1983.

A Requiem deals neither with scenic vistas or the sociological realities of a quiet community in the Aegean Sea. Rather, it is a reflection of the artist’s Canadian sensibilities with regard to death and dying as compared to essentially Greek peasant attitudes. On his primary visit to Sifnos, Keziere had been in the numbing state of rationalizing the sudden loss of both his parents. Because of its antiquity Sifnos seemed a continuous cemetery, unlike his British Columbia home region, but at the same time bespoke a sense of wisdom and calm. Keziere’s photographs are a successful attempt to articulate this sense which gradually came through to him. The resulting suite is a profound requiem created by a photographer in observance of personal loss and collective, affirmative humanity.