“Natural Selection” Exhibition
Calumet New York
This event has ended.
Natural Selection features the work of 16 emerging photographers from around the globe, and highlights the raw power of their vision as they address fears, insecurities, relationships, mourning, and personal turmoil. The exhibition is curated by NYC gallerist and educator Michael Foley.
In Natural Selection, the artists explore the surface and subsurface of the New York subway system, its neighborhoods, music, and nightlife; envision humanity’s impact on the environment, capture urban destruction in China, and the life of a fisherman in Trinidad and Tobago; and address how we perceive ourselves through editorial photography, fine-art compositing, and surreal and deeply personal medical images. Natural Selection is a brave show that is born out of personal unrest and a yearning for change and evolution, while honoring common vulnerability and morality.
Bina Altera’s Immemorial is a series of images of objects that represent legacy, death, personal relationships or power symbols that act as footprints or significant markers in people’s lives. Cana Atay portrays fictional stories based on conscious and unconscious memories. In Disquieting Muses, they tell the journey of a woman seeking to find and overcome moments in her past that haunt her. In Fruits of Nature, Dila Atay uses elaborate miniature still lifes to address the imaginary line of fear and wonder as humankind interacts with wildlife. This work questions how much damage humankind is causing to the planet and what we can do to right our wrongs.
Shelly Au’s Two Beautiful Daughters is a series of images depicting how China’s rapid growth has ushered in the destruction of history and communities. Shelly finds hope and courage through the chaos and brokenness of demolition. Yannick Bindert’s Wild Encounters in the Remnants of the City combines the tragic beauty of abandoned structures with the symbolic hope of renewed life found in the presence of wild animals. The artist imagines an eyewitness account of the last man on Earth, for whom these encounters have taken on new meanings of beauty, companionship and survival. Anna Colliton’s Thursday on the Island is a visual representation of a mystery story that explores the themes of loss, isolation and confusion as well as searching and finding. Masha Ermak’s The Strangers tells a story in which creatures of incompleteness and self-distortion struggle to find balance in everyday life.
Stephanie Guttenplan presents a visual representation of an ongoing internal dialogue in Mind Chatter, a collection of self-portraits, which deal with her own over-thought, fantasized and theatrical private thoughts. Lavonne Hall’s Correlations: NYC is a photographic project that explores the connection New York City residents feel to specific locations within the City. Two elements of each image—the subject and the location—form a complex image of layers and reflections. In Throughput, Elizabeth Harnarine explores the frustration of living with incurable chronic illness, in her case Crohn’s Disease. The work examines the incongruity of the abundance of information made available through modern medicine and the lack of safe and effective options for controlling the debilitating impact of the disease on her daily life.
Diana Kahrim was born and raised in a fishing village in the Caribbean. The stories her father told her up have shaped her life, defined her values and inspired her ambitions. In A Fisherman’s Journey, Kahrim returned to the village of her birth to photograph its residents and explore a way of life that so intimately influenced her. In The Underground, Clay Patrick McBride investigates the New York City subway system and its passengers. He portrays the subway in a separate and almost subconscious realm, where the basest of human fears of applies. In Beauty Blueprints, Heather Meyers sets out to explore the effect of societal ideals of beauty on individual self-image. Imara Moore found herself comforted by trees, which appeared to her as representations of a dialog between reality and spirituality. Revelation through Trees is a collection of photographs taken during this time.
Vicente Muñoz presents Euphoria, this photographic project is about understanding the group of people that attend to Electronic Dance Music (EDM) DJ sets as a way of social interaction, pleasure, or a simple escape from reality for just a couple of hours. It will not be about a specific genre or artist, but will be more about the experience and interactions that these people have to try and understand the generational change in music and culture happening worldwide but looked at from a New York City perspective. In Sub conscious way, Randhy Rodriguez explores the effects of imposed architectural spaces on the subconscious mind and how the uninviting, confusing and labyrinthine design of subway stations is beautiful and inspiring when seen with an inquisitive eye.
[Image: Masha Ermak, The Forgotten from the series The Strangers, 2013]
Media
Schedule
from February 20, 2014 to February 28, 2014
Opening Reception on 2014-02-20 from 17:30 to 19:30
The artists will be present to discuss their work and refreshments will be served