SECRET WAYS TO BE (from the series Soft Stories) | 30in. x 46in. | Archival Pigment Print on Epson Hot Press Bright 100% Cotton Rag, mounted | Digital Capture 2018 | Edition 2/5

Petelko, Laura Jane (Canada)

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Inspired by a conversation about a yearly “Furry” convention, deep in the Canadian wilderness, the initial spark for this work began.

Petelko recognized something both elemental and beautiful in the desire to seek connection through the symbolic inhabitation of animals. This was the point of departure. Steering away from the “Furry” subculture itself, she decided to broaden and expand this notion in a poetic and loose way; how it relates to us all in a larger sense. Of particular interest was our desperate need for intimacy in an increasingly digital and isolated world. A collective longing to commune with the very nature that we are ever losing touch with, and at the same time consuming.

It was important for Laura Jane to photograph the creatures in pristine Canadian landscapes. Places where we can access a majesty that subsumes our human and sometimes awkward attempts at communion, enveloping us in it’s quiet indifference and spectacular beauty. In meticulously hand-crafted costumes, designer Sara Wood collaborated with Laura Jane to create lush, sensual creatures that are deeply sincere and with a softness that arises from this human need for both protection from our world and a deeper connection to it. This work is about the beautiful world that we tread upon with need and appetite. It eludes to the distance and isolation felt in today’s modern world and the beauty and longing that invariably exists behind the artifice, yearning to thrive.

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Laura Jane Petelko is a Canadian photographic artist, currently based in Toronto, Canada. Having studied in Vancouver, Laura Jane began her career in the arts there in the early 2000's documenting times of deep transformation and collaborating with women to use their own bodies as media and message. Petelko studied and worked as a printer for west coast based photographic artists such as Harmony Korine, Kelly Wood, Roy Arden and Mark Gilbert. Laura Jane was represented by Vancouver’s “Third Avenue Gallery” for several years before she moved back to Toronto. Currently, Laura Jane is exhibiting her latest series MA, created during the pandemic in collaboration with dancers from the National Ballet Of Canada. This work has shown at the Lyceum Gallery Toronto and Cavalier Gallery in Palm Beach, New York and Connecticut. Her, two bodies of work, the nostalgic and sparse “Endless Gone” series which has been represented by Brussels based “Vogelsang Gallery” and featured at the 2018 opening of the New York City's Highline project by the late Zaha Hadid. The more enigmatic “Soft Stories' which explores our longing for connection with nature and our sense of intimacy was featured in Times Sqaure as part of Cube Fair, Scope Fair Miami in 2019 and in Blank Spaces magazine following her solo exhibition in Toronto , late 2019.

Her work has been known for it’s personal and intimate subject matter. Often dealing with the nature of ones identity and times of transformation. Laura Jane’s work has been recognized and exhibited in Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Miami and New York, with collectors in North America and Europe.