“Faces from Places” Exhibition

L. Parker Stephenson Photographs

This event has ended.

L. Parker Stephenson Photographs presents a group exhibition, Faces from Places, of portraits by six artists from four continents spanning 60 years. For some of the exhibited photographers it was a business, for others a personal project, but for all documenting the people in their area was a decades-long commitment. In an increasingly globalized and homogeneous world, this exhibition celebrates the history and character of place and community as observed through its inhabitants.

Working in rural Heber Springs, Arkansas, Disfarmer (1884-1959) made curious studio portraits, at once both formal and candid of children, couples, friends and families at a time when many of the sons, brothers, and husbands from this post-Depression farming region were heading off to fight in World War II.

Japanese photographer Hiroh Kikai (b. 1945) has worked for over three decades in the Asakusa district of Tokyo, consistently using a temple wall as an impromptu backdrop for creating portraits that, paired with shrewd titles, capture the unique individuality of a multitude of otherwise anonymous passers-by.

Finnish-British documentarian Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen (b. 1948) has, since 1969, been photographing successive generations of working class and marginalized communities in and around Newcastle upon Tyne in northeastern England with a sensitivity informed by social concern.

Starting in 1968 as a member of the Nigerian Arts Council, J. D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere (1930-2014) catalogued the extraordinary varieties of women’s intricate hairstyles: these ephemeral manifestations of cultural identity blur the boundaries between ethnographic notation and artistic expression.

The late Malick Sidibé (1935-2016) photographed gatherings and celebrations around the capital of a newly independent Mali reflecting a post-colonial euphoria. Each vintage folio presentation displays over a dozen views of a given event and was initially used to advertise the sale of individual prints to attendees.

In his studio portraits, Ghent-based artist Jacques Sonck (b. 1949) composes his sitters in a tradition reminiscent of Flemish and Northern European painting, placing them in the context of a history of archetypal characters.

These artists are all represented in museum collections and have had solo exhibitions both in the U.S. and abroad. Currently, there are exhibitions of Disfarmer’s work taking place in Madrid, Amsterdam and New Mexico. The Gallery will have books for sale by these artists during the course of its show.