Doug Dumais | Traces and Traverses

Each image in Traces and Traverses employs recognizable forms of communication that can be read: such as handwriting or side-by-side images that resemble the pages of an open book. The handwriting, however, is illegible, and the books feature photographs rather than words. As such, these suggestive images broach intangible concepts that lie immediately beyond the horizons of language. Through juxtaposition, digital manipulation, or lyrical handwriting, photographs of common objects — including construction materials, wrecked cars, or stones —act as thresholds to abstract ideas such as the movement of the celestial spheres or the passage of time.

Traces left open for interpretation, exits along a highway of meandering thought, or vistas out onto the terrain of the ineffable: the images in Traces and Traverses are the result of an open-ended process of research into the potential for words and images to broach ideas, sentiments, or experiences that defy articulation.

Doug Dumais is an emerging camera artist based in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. A self-taught photographer, Dumais holds a Masters degree in Art History from Concordia University (2019). He has exhibited at ARTCH Montréal and Galerie La Castiglione, and his scholarly writing, photography, and poetry have been featured in publications across Canada and in the United States.