All becoming clear: Port Blandford artist creates portraits from Scotch tape

'They're very light-contingent, and that's sort of like people,' says Leslie Sasaki.

'They're very light-contingent, and that's sort of like people,' says Leslie Sasaki

Melissa Tobin · CBC News · Posted: Feb 16, 2025 4:30 AM EST | Last Updated: February 16

A man stands beside a portrait made of scotch tape. — In his exhibit (In)Visible, Leslie Sasaki captures portraits of people using tape as his paint. (Melissa Tobin/CBC)

A new art exhibit at Gallery 59 in Gander, N.L., will have you thinking a little differently about office supplies.

(In)Visible is an exhibit by visual artist Leslie Sasaki — who now lives in Port Blandford — made using Plexiglas, a boxcutter and Scotch brand magic tape.

Sasaki peels out the strips, each layer adding a little more shade, as if it were a pencil. He says it's a way of exploring how people feel invisible in society.

"The portraits are very fugitive or kind of fragile. As you walk through the space, they'll change a bit. They're very light-contingent, and that's sort of like people," he said.

It's an art project that started almost 20 years ago when Sasaki was a professor at Memorial University's Grenfell Campus.

He was experimenting with different materials, eventually making a self-portrait with tape.

That picture has followed him to every office he's occupied since. While in Hamilton, Ont., Sasaki was asked to create an exhibit of tape portraits.

But he wanted it to be much more.

A portrait of a man made out of scotch tape beside a description of the piece. — Along with the portraits, the exhibit also includes passages from interviews Sasaki did with each sitter, asking them about the idea of being invisible. (Melissa Tobin/CBC)

Along with making an image in their likeness, Sasaki sat down to talk with each person.

"Tape attaches, it seals, it's used for labelling, but it also repairs. That got me thinking a little bit about the metaphor of being invisible," said Sasaki.

He says creating the portraits is the easy part for him, and the most enjoyable part of the project was getting to know the people he recreated with tape.

"Everyone has a story. It doesn't have to be the most spectacular, glamorous, sexy story ever, but everybody has a story and the sheer humanity, the everyday humanity of it, makes it amazing."

The exhibit in Gander features eight portraits, some from the original exhibit in Hamilton and some new ones he's created since moving back to Newfoundland.

"I think we all have different moments, where we feel a little overlooked, ignored," he said.

A photo of hands peeling off some scotch tape from the roll. — Sasaki says if you can draw, you can create with tape. He sees the material as a metaphor of being invisible. (Melissa Tobin/CBC)

In the decades since he made the first image, Sasaki says, he couldn't have imagined this project would still be going, and coming full circle, back in the province where it all began near one of his favourite art pieces.

"I feel really jazzed that my work is here. And just over to my right is the Ken Lockheed mural, which is an amazing piece of artwork — a Canadian treasure, as far as I'm concerned."