JOHN LUCAS
Snooker: Thailand & Burma

Gallery Two
Exhibition Dates: October 24 – November 21, 2015
Reception for the Artist: Friday, October 23, 5 – 9 pm

Stephen Bulger Gallery, 1026 QUEEN STREET WEST, TORONTO, ON M6J 1H6

Made during his time in Thailand and Burma, this exhibition is a series of photographs captured at multiple snooker halls.

In regards to this series, Lucas said:

This project began in 2012 when I came across a snooker hall in Vietnam. Young men and women moved gracefully between rows of large green felted tables. As sometimes happens in the shortest moment, a creative seed was planted. The time was not right to pursue it, but then I was soon to be in Bangkok where surely snooker halls would be common place. However finding my Bangkok hall, one with a dedicated community of Thai players, proved elusive even with the help of numerous local contacts. I decided that my feet, along with chance encounters, offered the best way forward, and took a Skytrain towards the city’s edge where I started walking, camera in hand, through the sweltering night. Some hours later, hidden in a narrow alley, I found what I wanted, squeezed past a thicket of parked motorbikes and entered a door framed by a string of blue lights. Inside men played while women passed cues, arranged balls and watched. I set out to convey the male players’ ; intensity and absorption in the game juxtaposed with the helpers – young brightly dressed and at times bored women. The following year I returned to Asia, this time to Burma as well as Thailand. Snooker places differed while my exploration of composition, colour, and most of all emotional space continued.

Born in London, England, Lucas studied physics at the University of Bristol and the University of Sussex. He subsequently received a doctorate in materials science, and in 1970 left for Canada where he became a scientist and inventor for the telecommunications and resource industries. Lucas’ work has been seen in several solo and group exhibitions. His photography has taken him from factories in his home city of Montreal to snooker halls in Asia.

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