Grow Up #1
Jake Kimble’s practice combines both humour and pathos in vulnerable, self-reflective images that often feature the artist himself engaged in acts of self-repair. Grow Up #1 is an image of the artist, aged six or seven, taken by his mother and overlaid with text that reads “I was told peace was mine to keep” – the statement of a promise unfulfilled or a burden to bear. The phrase implies both that peace was his, and its opposite – that he was to be the peacekeeper. The work reflects the artist’s personal experience of growing up in a chaotic household in which, from a young age, he felt the burden of adult responsibility. The photo features Kimble wearing a cowboy hat, on his way to the Calgary stampede, complicating his identity as a Chipewyan (Dëne Sųłıné) child from Treaty 8 territory in the Northwest Territories. In this work, Kimble subverts traditional dichotomies between “cowboys and Indians” and “parent and child” by playing both roles simultaneously.
Part of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival
Presented in partnership with Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival