Internationally renowned curators, art dealers, directors, publishers and photo editors are brought together for two days during CONTACT, to review work by emerging and mid-career artists and photographers. This program is open to those with developed projects - whether fine art, documentary, photojournalism or commercial - that are seeking opportunities for publishing, exhibiting nationally or internationally, as well as conceptual guidance and advice in career development.

Reviews
Sunday May 1 & Monday May 2, 2011
10am – 5pm 

Portfolio Night
Monday May 2, 6pm-8pm
Artists and photographers participating in the two day event are given the opportunity to share their work in an open forum with reviewers and invited local professionals. This exclusive, informal gathering will conclude with the announcement of the Portfolio Reviews Exhibition Award winners.

The Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen St. W. Toronto

Reviewers Include:

Sheyi Antony Bankale, Next Level Magazine; Els Barents, Huis Marseille; Lise Beaudry, Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography; Melissa Bennett, Art Gallery of Hamilton; Marilyn Cadenbach, Marilyn Cadenbach; Louise Clements, Format Photography Festival; Leila Courey, Leo Burnett; Sophie Hackett, Art Gallery of Ontario; Joanna Thorne Hurley HurleyMedia; Michael Itkoff, Daylight Magazine; Jooli Kim, JK Productions; Robert Pledge, Contact Press Images; Natalie MacNamara, O Born Contemporary; Anne Maureen McKeating, TAXI Canada Inc; Daniel Neuhaus, Toronto Life; Johanna Reynolds, The Department;  Arianna Rinaldo, OjodePez Magazine; Bonnie Rubenstein, CONTACT Photography Festival; Judith Tatar, Tatar Art Projects; Denise Wolff, Aperture Foundation; Bryce Wolkowitz, Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery.

Special thanks to The Gladstone Hotel, Vistek, Toronto Image Works and Blurb. 

Registration for next year opens in February 2012. 

To support and advance the careers of talented, emerging photographers, two participants will be awarded a solo exhibition, presented by either the CONTACT Gallery or Toronto Image Works Gallery. Vistek, Canada's leading camera store will provide each winner with a gift certificate valued at $1000.

Jesse Louttit (b. 1981) is a photographer based in Toronto. His images are explorations of people and settings in the everyday, trying to create something unique and beautiful to the audience. Louttit has been working with large format cameras to produce his images, and feels the display of the final print is as important as the original photograph itself. His first solo exhibition Employees Only garnered attention from the international press. For more information, visit: www.jesselouttit.com

Jonathan Taggart (b. 1985) is a Vancouver-based photojournalist whose work exploring the challenges facing Canada’s First Nations communities has been published and exhibited internationally. Taggart holds a BFA in Photography from Ryerson University in Toronto, and in 2008 he was recognized by CONTACT with a Scotiabank Scholarship to Magnum Workshop Toronto. He is a National Magazine Award nominee (photojournalism, 2009), as well as the recipient of exhibition funding from the Ontario Arts Council.

Taggart is a founding member of the Boreal Collective of Canadian documentary photographers and a Master of Arts candidate at Royal Roads University’s School of Communication and Culture. He also teaches photography to at-risk Aboriginal youth as a volunteer with Vancouver’s Urban Native Youth Association. For more information, visit www.jonathantaggart.com.
 

Henrieta Haniskova was born and raised in socialist Czechoslovakia. Settling in a new home across the ocean at the age of 19, she spent her first paycheck on a used Olympus SLR. What started out as a hobby Haniskova studied at the Toronto School of Art, Ryerson University and assisted a number of commercial photographers in Toronto. Currently working as a commercial photographer, she has traveled the world with her camera. Her photographic project documenting 50 Elvis Tribute Artists in Collingwood has received much acclaim. In 2008 her work was a Featured Exhibition at the CONTACT Photography Festival. The same body of work earned her 3rd place in the Lucie Awards, New York and will be published in the Canadian Geographic this summer. For more information, visit: www.henrietahaniskova.com

The CONTACT Gallery presented I Am Elvis from January 31 to March 5, 2011.

Alex Kisilevich is a photo-based artist living and working in Toronto. He completed two BFA’s from York University (Music, 2007) and OCAD (Photography, 2009) and is currently completing an MFA at York University. Kisilevich is engulfed by the tragic and ironic. He uses storytelling capabilities of constructed narrative to manifest these feelings in his work. His photographs often conjure spaces of in-between where the lines between several emotions are blurred and the viewer is caught between the desire to smile and to feel disturbed. His work was featured in Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward 2009. He was the national winner of BMO’s 1st Art Invitational Student Competition 2009. Represented by Angell Gallery. For more information, visit: www.alexkisilevich.com

A show of Kisilevich's new work is forthcoming at Toronto Image Works Gallery.