The Eloquent Eye
The North End:
Photographs by John Paskievich.
Book Review by Robert B.
Klymasz, Ph.D.
Like all art at its best, the work contained in this book defies
picky analysis. And not surprisingly, captions and explanatory notes are
totally absent here. For Paskievich, after all, it’s the image alone that
matters. His focus on
As he explores this grass-roots setting,
Paskievich uses humans to carry his message. Whether sitting, walking, lying,
standing, marching, dancing or simply staring into his lens - Paskievich’s characters steal the show and
turn his book of stills into a slide show that moves, informs and entertains
from cover to cover. In many of his
photographs, he naturally draws on his Ukrainian heritage to provide visual
contrasts that juxtapose traditional iconic elements (like traditional
Ukrainian embroideries, “perogies” and onion-domed churches) with commonplace banalities
(like beer bottles, cigarette-smoking, and knee-high dolls in Ukrainian
costume). The effect is provocative and
playful at the same time.
Stephen Osborne’s introductory essay (“Invisible
City: John Paskievich and the North End of Winnipeg”) is an important part of
this book and needs to be read along with glowing reviews published locally in
The Winnipeg Free Press (on October 21, 2007) and nationally in The
Globe and Mail (on November
3, 2007). Researchers will want to compare this corpus of photography
with publications by other leading art photographers of Ukrainian descent
operating elsewhere in
Based in