Barbara Spohr
Bag of Fish
Date unknown
Type-C print

Barbara Spohr
Restaurant, Barb’s rose coloured glasses on table
1980
Type-C print

Barbara Spohr
Diptych,
Bowl of Eggs Raw then Cooked
1986
Type-C print

Barbara Spohr: strangely familiar

Of the 5,000 words we speak on average every day, 4,000 of these are said in our head or quietly to ourselves. This ongoing internal dialogue, examination, or soundtrack is an intuitive, uncensored, and honest response to the world around us. One is reminded of these silent conversations when looking at Barbara Spohr’s photographs, although she takes note of her surroundings not with furtive thoughts, but with exposed images.

Spohr contemplates the bits and pieces of life that are usually overlooked, but in doing so, she has created a sincere and concentrated visual archive of daily life. It is this intimacy and ability to reveal that makes her images strangely familiar rather than other worldly, giving the viewer an uneasy feeling of having experienced sitting here, or looking out through that window, or feeling this grass on our own legs. This is the power of her photographs; they create contradictions that are possible and visions of stories we all recognize. Barbara Spohr proves that she is one of the few who is able not only to look, but also to see.

— Naomi Potter

The Walter Phillips Gallery is pleased to present this exhibition of photographs that Barbara Spohr produced between 1978 and 1986. The Banff Centre would like to thank the Spohr family for their generous donation. 75th anniversary activities have been made possible with support from the Kahanoff Foundation, and from lead corporate sponsor Chevron.