Steven Beckly at Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto

Daniel Faria Gallery is pleased to present Handy Work, Steven Beckly’s third solo presentation with the gallery and a CONTACT Photography Festival Core Exhibition.

The photographs in Handy Work emerge from a collaborative process between Beckly and his father, a Chinese-Canadian war veteran. Based on conversations between the two about his father’s time as a weapons technician during the Vietnam War, Beckly worked with a local jewelry designer to fashion a series of unique rings referencing the shapes of bullets, casings, and shields, some inlaid with jade and gemstones. Their surfaces also reveal hints of the natural world: the veins of a leaf or the rippled texture of water. These are based on Beckly’s existing photographs, which have been translated into brass using 3D printing technology. Captured in chiaroscuro lighting against army-green and camouflage-patterned backdrops, the rings appear on Beckly’ and his father’s hands, as they twist and tangle in various evocative compositions.

In Beckly’s photographic practice he expands and manipulates the medium by printing on materials such as tissue, handmade paper, plastic, or foil, many of which bend, distort, and sometimes fold the image. He often involves jewelry-like fixtures—chains, pins, gems, or shells— which fasten his work to the walls or hang in front of it like a veil. In Handy Work this process is reversed: the sculptural adornments appearing within, rather than outside of, the photographs.

In the titular image, two bullet-shaped rings worn by Beckly’s father extend the reach of his fingers, which together form a mudra, a hand gesture symbolic within Buddhist circles. Known as the “turning of the wheel,” the tips of his thumb and index finger touch to form a circle, signifying the ongoing process of living and learning, as well as the cyclical nature of existence. In 62156227, Beckly wears a jade ring with his father’s military number embossed in brass, his index finger pointing to the same mudra, but in the form of a tattoo on the artist’s left arm. Hidden Power features Beckly’ and his father’s hands adorned with long brass rings inset with jade stones, which glint in the sunlight. Their hands are outstretched, joining together to perform a mudra named after the lotus flower, a symbol of awakening and open-heartedness. Visible on Beckly’s arm are two tattooed circles, a reference to Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ Untitled (Perfect Lovers) (1987-1990). Two hands joined, two circles meeting, two clocks ticking… These photographs remind us not only of the bonds between child and parent, but of any two people in relation, in love, in loss.

By interweaving military and spiritual references, Beckly questions the connections between these enduring human practices, while examining how hands—and all that they represent—can serve this questioning. Through an intimate engagement with his father, he considers the ways in which images, objects, and the legacies of war interlink us and what gets handed down from father to son, from generation to generation.

Steven Beckly is a Chinese-Canadian artist and photographer residing in Tkaronto/Toronto. Recent solo exhibitions include The heart can’t wait, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto; Lightbringer, Stride Gallery, Calgary; and Love S.O.S., Centre3, Hamilton. Beckly’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Remai Modern, Saskatoon; Two Seven Two Gallery, Toronto; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. Beckly has produced public art installations for Capture Photography Festival, Vancouver (2023); The Bentway, Toronto (2018); TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image, Philadelphia (2017); and CONTACT Photography Festival (2017). His work can be found in the collections of: the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; TD Art Collection, Toronto, Scotiabank Art Collection, Toronto; among others.

This exhibition is supported by the Toronto Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts.