Carmine Groe Presents “i am”: A Fifteen-Year Photographic Journey from the Literal to the Essential
TORONTO, ON – As part of the 2026 CONTACT Photography Festival, photographer Carmine Groe presents i am, a powerful exhibition of street portraiture captured in Toronto between 2007 and 2022. Hosted at Daniels Waterfront, North Gallery, George Brown Polytechnic, the exhibition invites viewers to move beyond the surface of the human face to find a more profound, universal connection.
The exhibition begins with a provocative ritual: a mirror and a singular colour portrait. These serve as a threshold, grounding the viewer in the vivid reality of the everyday before they are led into a meditative, monochromatic landscape. The sequence of twenty-eight black-and-white portraits that follows utilizes a minimalist palette to emphasize the raw architecture of the human form, inviting a focused contemplation of the subject’s presence.
Groe’s work is built on fleeting interactions—moments with strangers lasting from minutes to an hour. These images do not claim to document an absolute reality. Instead, they explore the space between the photographer and the subject.
“My pictures reveal a sense of trust, but not truth,” says Groe. “I don’t believe a portrait can reveal the absolute truth about a subject; we are far too complex. Rather, I think a photographic portrait describes the artist’s personal observation of a universal truth in someone else.”
Driven by a personal mantra—“Not as the eye sees it, but as the heart feels it, that is my quest”—Groe’s work seeks to trigger visceral emotions and leave the viewer with unanswered questions. Over the fifteen-year span of this project, the images become as much a reflection of the artist as they are of the people of Toronto.
Exhibition Details:
About the Artist: Carmine Groe is a Toronto-based artist and photographer whose practice is a continuous quest to capture the world not as the eye sees it, but as the heart feels it. His work investigates the space between the literal and the essential, ranging from intimate street portraiture to expansive environmental studies and long-term visual narratives. An observer of the human condition for nearly two decades, Groe uses the camera as a tool for seeking universal truths within the ephemeral. He is the author of several photographic projects, including the recently released book, Reverie.
Media Contact: Carmine Groe 647-449-9125 | carminegroe@gmail.com | www.carminegroe.com
