The evening sun was still hanging high in the sky this past Wednesday evening in New York City, when the Jen Bekman Project open it’s doors to show off their new photography exhibit. The gallery focuses the works of emerging artist locally, nationally and internationally, and my senses were triggered when I managed to find the work of young Canadian educated photographer Kotama Bouabane.

Bouabane graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design back in 2003, and now has found his way to Montreal to complete his masters at Concordia. For this exhibition Bouabane shows a series of work that focused around text and confronting stereotypes. The idea for the text is inspired by Bouabane family and the fact that he is photographing text made of ice speaks to the temporal quality of the words or stereotypes. This temporal quality of the ice echoes the medium of photography for this young artist.As  Bouabane takes photo in order to capture specific moments in time that only exist for an instant, he immortalizes these moments on film. I look forward to catching up with Bouabane in Montreal after he’s had time to stew in the world of the graduates, and to see what new steps his work will take.

www.kotamabouabane.com
www.jenbekman.com