NYAB Event - "Above and Beyond Photography" Exhibition

"Above and Beyond Photography" Exhibition

The Muriel Guépin Gallery

This event has ended.

In this new group show called "Above and Beyond Photography", the three featured woman artists all use photography as their primary medium, whether it is reproduction of family photos or original contemporary portraits. Their different cultural backgrounds play out in a subtle yet powerful way with all three of them altering the photographic medium, slicing, distorting or embroidering the images to create unique work of arts.

Lucilla Bonfanti's statement: "With the invention of photography and the proliferation of mechanically reproduced images, the eye has had to pick up speed to such an extent that we have grown accustomed to read all visual compositions at a glance. The source of my work is a handful of black and white photographs. It would take but a few minutes to view them all, but because my intention is to communicate to the viewer some important details about family interactions and emotions associated with memories and the passing of time, I have made recourse to different techniques of alteration and modification. All this has been to alter the speed of visual time, that is to slow down the process of seeing in order to catch the viewer's attention long enough to tell the story. My work deals simultaneously with perception of space and time. By revisiting my past I have allowed myself to readdress some unresolved issues that have been burdening me for many years, thus experiencing a healing effect. The original photographs, capturing actual frozen moment in the life of family members, through means of reconstruction have become imaginary images attempting to convey feelings aroused by the memory I hold of a particular person or event. Memory is not a reliable source of historical facts when we deal with emotions. For memory alters events and actions to suit the emotional need of the one remembering. Revisiting the past is a painful process for the past cannot be changed but we can alter our perception of the past to satisfy whatever needs we have for closure and forgiveness. A personal journey thus becomes a universal journey for we all share good and bad memories of our parents, siblings and friends."

Keun Young Park's statement: "I believe that everything continuously changes, either being generated or destroyed. Presence is just a state of being and the reality of an object has ambiguity in this shifting in time. In my work, i intend to reflect upon the astatic character of existence in the flow of time as well as the opposite sides of nature - the negative and positive, the construction and destruction, life and death and the presence and absence. To accomplish my micro mosaic collage work, i take pictures of parts of the body or face, change the color and saturation of those images by Photoshop and print them out on paper. Then, i tear the pictures and paste them piece-by-piece. Through this process of breaking down photo images and recomposing them, figures have thousands of tiny particles and textures that make the images look blurry and tremulous".

Melissa Zexter's statement: "I combine the slow and meditative process of hand-sewn embroidery with the technologically more immediate medium of photography. I use an older art form, embroidery, refracted through a modern one, photography, to create structured objects that are embodiments of both fragmentation and focused concentration. I hand stitch intricate puzzles using needle and thread over color and black and white and color photographs that I have taken. The sewn patterns are colored textured drawings, which serve as webs and grids over the photographs, providing another dimension to the images. The sewing creates a filtered experience; much the way emotions and personal history alter everyday perception."