Domestic Sublime

Domestic Sublime was launched in Toronto on Aug 12th, 2023 at Fertile Festival of New and Inventive Works at Remote Gallery. This 15-image chapbook is published by Knife Fork Book and is available through my website for purchase.

Domestic Sublime Artist’s Statement:

The backyards visible from Montreal alleys are famously small, but under the correct conditions sparse morning light can suspend an object within what appears to be an immense darkness. I called the images taken under these conditions ‘domestic sublime’ when I discovered them during the spring of 2021, for the sense of magnitude they could evoke within such a humble urban setting. As Edmund Burke described when comparing the sublime and the beautiful, “sublime objects are vast in their dimensions, beautiful ones comparatively small; … beauty should not be obscure; the great ought to be dark and gloomy; beauty should be light and delicate; the great ought to be solid and even massive.” The ability of these images to simultaneously embody both the sublime and the beautiful, and the state of awe that this can awaken, are for me the essence of the domestic sublime.

Over the past two years, I’ve explored neighbourhoods across the city seeking out domestic sublime images. The photos in this volume are selected from the resulting body of work. During the creation of this book, I expanded the domestic sublime aesthetic to include other types of image in order to build a more diverse visual language when sequencing. These include abstract plays of light, and flash images of everyday phenomena such as staircase railings and urban flora. This particular amalgam of photos is meant to evoke in the viewer a sense of amazement with a world in constant flux, and an appreciation for how the alchemy of light can make the hyper-ordinary extraordinary.

—Dean Garlick

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