Avenue Calgary — January 2018

74 avenueJANUARY.18

WORK OF ART

CURATED BY Katherine Ylitalo

Photograph by M.N. Hutchinson

TITLE: Site 9, 2017, based

on the series, Location

Photographs for the

Pre-History of MN

Hutchinson, 2006-2009

ARTIST: M.N. Hutchinson

MEDIUM: Foil-backed vinyl

of digital print on con-

crete wall, printed and

installed by Anvy Digital.

SIZE: 28 feet in diameter.

LOCATION: 2044 33 Ave.

S.W.

NOTES: Commissioned

through Paul Kuhn

Gallery for the Odeon

Building.

A

giant circular photographic mural
by M.N. Hutchinson sits high on
the dark wall of the Odeon Build-
ing in Marda Loop. You recognize
leafy trees, mountains, lichen-covered
rocks, a pond and a man in blue jeans dousing
his head in a mountain stream. But the details
appear more distorted as you look toward the
centre. Scan the outer circumference and see
how the landscape repeats itself, giving the ef-
fect of a reflection. Small differences reveal the
two halves actually form a two-part time-lapse
sequence. The man disappears in the bottom
half. And a furtive dark shape behind the trees
at the 10-o’clock spot has vanished from the
corresponding four-o’clock spot.
M.N. Hutchinson, the photographer and
central character, is still perplexed by that mys-
terious dark presence. He had travelled to in-
vestigate his family history in Haukom, Norway,
carrying a homemade motorized panorama
camera that he fabricated with his father’s help.
Holding the remote while he dunked his head,
he didn’t notice any creatures nearby.
Hutchinson (a.k.a. Hutch) is one of the most
knowledgeable, experienced and inventive pho-
tographers in Calgary. An active professional
photographer since 1981, he taught for 21 years,
and continues to work as an artist, employing
photography and a bit of performance. His self-
portraits are somewhat mysterious, perhaps
unlikely, but mostly true.
Originally, Hutchinson envisioned this image
as an anamorphic photograph on a table that
would come into focus in a central upright cylin-
drical mirror. The French mathematician Jean
DuBreuil published the complex distortion for-
mula in 1679 and by Victorian times it was the
basis for popular optical toys. When Hutchinson
produced the digital image, he realized it was just
as interesting on a wall without a mirror. This
super-size version, in an outdoor public setting,
is the next generation of experimentation.

Site 9