I’ve been looking at this photo for a couple of weeks now – it is the image featured on a postcard announcing Jonathan Hobin’s new exhibit at the City Hall Art Gallery in Ottawa (March 16-April 29).
It’s a disturbing image…more disturbing for me, maybe, since this is a photo of Jon’s late grandfather, Bill Merrill, who I knew all my life. In the 1960s, my grandfather and Bill Merrill built cottages next to each other on the Ottawa River, and I tend to think of Jon as my cousin.
You may remember Jon’s work from his ‘In the Playroom’ series which made headlines a couple of years ago because of the way it placed children in controversial ‘reenactments’ of tragic news events, like this one about the death of Jon-Benet Ramsay:
I’ve always been a big fan of Jon’s work – and of course now that he’s being famous all over the place I feel quite happy that I have some of my very own Jonathan Hobin Originals around here. One day I’ll be a little old lady on Antiques Roadshow, showing off the photos Jonathan took of me when I was young, and I’ll look like I had a far more interesting past than I really do.