Toronto Star - Wealth without the wealthy
Art by Numbers
Peter Goddard
As Scott Johnston would ride his bike through The Bridle Path in north Toronto, he’d watch people in cars slow down to gawk at the mansions, some distance back from the meandering road. Conrad Black lived there, they’d point out. That used to be Gordon Lightfoot’s place. Huge Hong Kong money was behind that monster home.
"Then I happened to notice some overgrown foliage and it piqued my curiosity," says the 39-year-old Toronto Photographer/artist. "I looked farther (at a particular house) and noticed how dilapidated it was, how the pool house was falling apart, how the tennis court was all overgrown. Then I noticed another home just like it."
"Photographs from The Bridle Path," a new collection of Johnston’s photos, is currently at Engine Gallery in a show he hopes will trigger some sort of response from the owners of the decaying homes. Bridle Path residents complained bitterly for years about the number of houses abandoned by proprietors who’d either lost their money or found a better address to park it.
So Johnston started shooting, hopping fences or simply going through doors left unlocked.
"With most places I’d try to get in and out as quickly as I could," says Johnston. "But the more often I went into a place the more comfortable I felt. Once I’d closed the door behind me, I’d had a sense of home. Yet there’d be sadness and innocence to it too, particularly seeing the kids’ stuff – that was like seeing a toy thrown into the garbage."
- Decay: "The broken glass was in the backyard of this house, not a very big house because the older ones aren’t as big as the newer ones. But coming into it you felt a certain presence. I realize you expect shots like these to be in poor neighborhoods. But there’s wealth here. In my world, if I’m going to leave my house behind I’m going to sell the house. In their world, they leave this or that house and let them meet their own demise. Being inside theses rooms was almost a metaphor for being closed off and searching for some sort of clarity. Then you see the window, and you know there’s escape."
- Empty Spaces: "This gave me more light to work with. It gave me a sense of what it was to be outside here. You could see people sitting around there with their lattes in the morning. The light would be beautiful in these big spaces in these decaying homes. You got a sense that these houses were comfortable in their demise. That’s the nature of the nature. We’re all subject to impermanence."
- Colours: "I used to always shoot in black and white. But I thought using colour would bring a sense of reality to it. In black and white there’s always more drama. With colour I could show just what I had seen."
"Photographs from The Bridle Path" is at the Engine Gallery, 1112 Queen St E., until May 11
