COOPER COLE is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Canadian artist Scott Treleaven for Art Basel’s online fair, Art Basel: OVR 2021.

Scott Treleaven’s most recent body of work expands on his ongoing series of torn photocollages; bipartite constructions made from over two decades worth of the artist’s own 35mm snapshots.

Produced by physically tearing in half and reassembling 4 x 6” photographs, Treleaven creates a new visual unity between the disparate pieces. The tear in the work becomes a transition between two fields; an edit, a horizon and a fulcrum. The assemblages avoid easy visual or surrealist puns, working instead with arrangements of subject, light, colour, and space. Each photo surrenders up a fraction of its original form, now segments in a new narrative that evokes the ghosts of their discarded halves.

Treleaven’s artistic origins are in small-gauge filmmaking and self-published zines that made an enduring contribution to independent, queer, and underground culture. The modest and democratic tenets of his early practice continue in his material choices, as well as his theory of collage as a basic gesture of insolence; a social strategy for both discord and unanticipated beauty. The photographs change from a serially reproducible, private object into a singular unique artwork by a process that usually signifies the ultimate rejection of an image.

Scott Treleaven (b. 1972, Canada) graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1996. A noted figure in 90s underground cinema and queer zine circles, the modest and democratic tenets of his early practice continue in his material choices. Solo and group exhibitions include: Cooper Cole, Toronto (2020, 2018, 2017); FRONT International Triennial, Cleveland (2018); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2018); XYZ Collective, Tokyo (2018); MOCA Tucson, Arizona (2018); Invisible-Exports, New York (2018, 2015, 2013, 2011); The Suburban, Milwaukee (2017); 80WSE, New York (2016); Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2014); ICA, Philadelphia (2013); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); ICA London, UK (2012); Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro (2010); Biennale de Montréal (2007); and John Connelly Presents, New York (2008, 2006), amongst others. Treleaven’s publications have been included in historical overviews such as In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955 (JRP|Ringier 2009), The Magazine – Documents of Contemporary Art Series (MIT Press 2015), and Showboat: Punk, Sex, Bodies (Dashwood 2016). Treleaven currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.