Don Corman
Currently a Calgary resident, artist Don Corman was born in Victoria, British Columbia in 1951. Don studied painting, sculpture and photography at the Orange Coast College in California, earning his Associate of Arts Degree. From there, he began study at the Central Washington University, where he took classes in art history, sculpture and photography and earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree. Don then earned his Master of Arts Degree in Art Theory and Photography from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. In addition to pursing his own work, Don has taught at the University of Calgary, the Alberta College of Art, for the Vancouver School Board, and at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He is also a cofounder of the Stride Gallery in Calgary.
Don enjoys working with rescued photographs; that is, ones that have been discarded by their original owners after they deemed the pictures not good enough to keep. Genuinely interested in the day-to-day lives of the subjects, and as a comment on photography in the hands of the amateur, Don manipulates the images and places them out of context, which in turn highlights their spontaneous nature and often interesting and surprising composition. Also a comment on the lack of discretion and privacy afforded by modern mass media, these photos take would-be intimate moments and blow them up for all to see.
His work has been show in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, New York and California. His work is held in the collections of the National Film Board, the BC Credit Union, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Italian Embassy in Ottawa, the Laguna Beach Art Museum, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. In 1981, Don also published a book of his photographic study of the hospitality industry – Comfort and Cleanliness: A Guide to the Hospitality Industry.
Don enjoys working with rescued photographs; that is, ones that have been discarded by their original owners after they deemed the pictures not good enough to keep. Genuinely interested in the day-to-day lives of the subjects, and as a comment on photography in the hands of the amateur, Don manipulates the images and places them out of context, which in turn highlights their spontaneous nature and often interesting and surprising composition. Also a comment on the lack of discretion and privacy afforded by modern mass media, these photos take would-be intimate moments and blow them up for all to see.
His work has been show in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, New York and California. His work is held in the collections of the National Film Board, the BC Credit Union, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Italian Embassy in Ottawa, the Laguna Beach Art Museum, and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. In 1981, Don also published a book of his photographic study of the hospitality industry – Comfort and Cleanliness: A Guide to the Hospitality Industry.