Portrait of an Island

Susan Benson's exhibition "Portrait of an Island" portrays over 160 people who call Salt Spring Island, B.C. home. As humans, we have the innate ability to recognize and distinguish between faces. From birth, the human face plays an important role in our varied social interactions. The Freudian portraits in "Portrait of an Island" explore this perceptual idea by presenting the social face of a specific time and place in the west of Canada through a cross-section of the island inhabitant's faces - a fitting Canada 150 celebration.