Exhibition Preview & Artist Talk:
JW Toftness
Thursday, September 3rd at Candela Photographic Arts
Doors open at 6 pm. Talk begins at 6:30 pm
Free and open to the public
Join us for an exhibition preview and conversation with Savannah-based artist, JW Toftness in conjunction with his exhibition, When Seeds are Sent for Flowers. The exhibition presents a selection of new works alongside images from Toftness' MFA thesis, To Redecorate a Dream, focusing on human relationships with technology and on slippages between perceived and mediated realities.
To convey this entanglement of virtual and visceral, the main sculptural pieces featured in the project serve as critical links between process and concept. I construct them using a basic, pulpy artistic material—papier-mâché—and the final works act in conjunction with, and counterpoint to, the advanced tools of a digital photography workflow.
I utilize color theory and take inspiration from visual culture. Specific instances of inspiration drawn range from Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam to Jean Baudrillard’s photographs to the default background for the Windows XP operating system, and claimed to be the most viewed photograph in history.
The exhibition will be on view through October 24 alongside of Tommy Kha's Facades.
JW Toftness (b. 1984) focuses on human relationships with technology and on slippages between perceived and mediated realities. Toftness incorporates imagery from various nodes of visual culture, embedding in his works a critique of how image ecologies shape our experience. Based in Savannah, GA, he is a featured artist in "New South, Volume 2: Double Vision" (Atlanta Center for Photography, 2025). His work was recently exhibited in UnBound14! at Candela Books + Gallery in Richmond, VA, and in other group shows at: Atlanta Photography Group, Atlanta, GA; Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Providence, RI; Oregon Contemporary, Portland, OR; and ATHICA, Athens, GA. His first solo exhibition will be at Cleo the Project Space in Savannah, December 2025.