NYAB Event - Jean-Luc Mylayne Exhibition

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At Gladstone Gallery (Chelsea)
Media: Photography

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Blurring the boundary between artist and subject, Jean-Luc Mylayne’s large format color photographs belie the patience and singular focus of his explorations into art and ornithology. This powerful new body of work represents the artist’s first series of photographs made in America. Shot during a two year Lannan Foundation residency in Fort Davis, Texas, here Mylayne continues his ongoing project of photographing birds in their natural environs. As opposed to seeking out the most exotic specimens of winged life, he rather pursues harmony between the commonplace and the extraordinary and a balance between the landscape and the birds that call it home. Each unique photograph condenses the patience of the artist, who will often wait for weeks or months to build a trusting relationship with his avian subjects. Yet, it is not simply the case of snapping the shutter in the decisive moment; rather, Mylayne uses a series of lenses unique to his practice that reconfigure the landscape, appearing simultaneously in focus or blurred, to mimic neither spatial perspective nor the artist’s point of view, but the naked eye itself.
Whether hidden within bushes, blurred in motion, or seeming to perch on the edge of the lens itself, the birds that Mylayne photographs appear to relate equally to their context as well as their role in front of the camera. As the artist says: “The bird didn’t just consent to a picture. He posed, allowing me to take this portrait. It took two years to achieve this result. And it isn’t just about understanding the life of birds. Above all, it is an exploration, a way to try and to know ourselves, what we do and why we do it, through the bird.” Mylayne is no naturalist, a bird-watcher driven to examine the scientific traits of a species; instead, his nomadic project is one of personal understanding and the relationships that are essential, yet not exclusive to, humanity.

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