In SKYLIGHT, Toronto mixed-media artist Stev’nn Hall takes us on a fieldtrip of real places that remind him of his past but are now fictionalised by his creative imagination. The work blurs the borders between photography and painting. Through his process of staining, scratching and embellishing the image with sharp brushstrokes and raw colour, Hall’s transformation of these scenes is beguiling. A new world appears to be blooming before our eyes.

The images appear magical and somewhat menacing – at once ravishing and ravaged. The fact that the series was conceived during Hall’s frequent trips back to his hometown to care for (and inevitably, to bury) his cancer-stricken parents marks the work with a beauteous heartache. Life and love and loss are all tangled up here.