Untitled
X.222.012
Frank Pimentel's 1987 photo series, Dunlands Restaurant, documented the patrons, employees and sights of the Dunlands café, which was formerly located in East end Toronto. The patrons of the restaurant were described by the artist as ex-cons, substance abusers, runaways, displaced and developmentally disabled persons. His work is both insightful and empathetic, and forms an important document of a neighbourhood in transition.
Pimentel's artistic oeuvre focuses on social documentary photography that explores issues of immigration, social marginalization, and urban decay within North America. Pimentel’s vernacular subjects and banal restaurant moments have been captured through his camera lens with insight and empathy, creating a visual history of the everyday at the Dunlands Restaurant. These images are a small selection from a portfolio of seventy prints that Pimentel originally completed for this project.