| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Born in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, photographer Edmond Murray Blanc lived in Alberta between 1974 and 1992. He earned his BA from the University of British Columbia (1968) and a Diploma in Visual Communications with a concentration in Photography from the Banff Centre for the Arts (1978). He briefly taught photography and photographic retouching at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary during the 1980s.
Blanc’s still life photography implies personality in its subject matter and provokes questions; the 1989 colour Ektachrome “Duet” depicts a gangly choir of worn, white-painted vertical boards encompassing either a window or a framed picture. The construction pivots natural, colourful vitality into the decay of human construction while offering a glimpse into an empty (but real) world inside, or a flat reconstruction of one outside.
Blanc participated in several exhibitions, including at the Walter J. Phillips Gallery in Banff, the Muttart Gallery and Nickle Arts Museum in Calgary, the 1982 National Film Board of Canada Sights of History travelling exhibition, and two shows at the Harcourt House Arts Centre in Edmonton. His work can be found in the collections of the Bank of Montreal, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Banff Centre of Fine Arts, the National Film Board of Canada, and the Canada Council Arts Bank. |