Four exhibitions
dal 20/7/2007 al 18/8/2007
Segnalato da
Houston Center for Photography
20/7/2007
Four exhibitions
Houston Center for Photography, Houston
PictureThis!: a collaborative venture with The Children's Hospital at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Clinic. Fellowship: the 6 artists in this exhibition were chosen as honorable mention recipients and selected images of their work. Rocky's Neighborhood at Night: unusual perspective and the nighttime setting by Colin Zelt. Japan: the images are akin to the memory of an intense dream you cannot quite recall.
Fellowship Exhibition / Rocky's Neighborhood at Night / Japan / PictureThis!
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Rocky´s Neighborhood at Night
Images by Colin Zelt, 2007 Carol Crow Memorial Fellowship Recipient.
Most people live in a city, and it is their immediate neighborhood that forms a big part of their lives, whether or not they are aware of it. A year ago I set out to try to capture what constitutes a neighborhood using a new perspective. During much of 2006, I took my camera with me during evening walks with my dog (Rocky) in my neighborhood in Houston. I used a small tripod to match his eye level, a right-angle viewfinder, and a very wide-angle lens to capture whole scenes much as we perceive them. The small tripod and my dog gave me a "cover" and drew less attention while taking the long exposures, up to 30 seconds.
Other than the low vantage point and very wide perspective, these images are devoid of gimmicks and are essentially "straight", with the computer used mainly to provide an appropriate white balance (color correction). All of the lighting is natural, that is, street lights, house lights, and the moon. I´ve intentionally avoided people in these images so that the focus is on the neighborhood as a place where people live, as opposed to the people in it. Although taken in Houston, these are not photos of Houston, in the sense that they could be taken in just about any established, transitioning urban neighborhood in the country. I see these images as a blend of the approaches of two very different master photographers: the carefully composed nighttime scenes of Paris by Brassai, combined with the color and everyday subject matter of William Eggleston.
Conceptual objective: Through unusual perspective and the nighttime setting, I am trying to provide a new appreciation of the urban neighborhood. It is the established, everyday things that give our neighborhoods character and a sense of being "lived in". Photography at night is not a new concept, but nighttime images convey a very different feeling compared to their daytime counterpart: a heightened sense of mystery or anxiety is created by not knowing what is in the shadows of the places where we live.
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Japan
While in Japan, my reading list consisted of Japanese contemporary literature from authors like Haruki Murakami, Yukio Mishima, Kenzaburo Oe and Banana Yamamoto. The novels I read where powerful, mournful and rich. I was surprised to find from this diverse list that a thematic thread connected the stories to one another. A sense of a solitary inner life searching for acceptance from a rigid society settled on me and inspired my shooting process. The images I shot resonate with the themes expressed by some of Japan´s most famous contemporary authors.
To me these images are akin to the memory of an intense dream you cannot quite recall but find that the emotional imprint is powerful and clear. This work makes it easy for me to recollect how moved I was as I read The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, a story imbued with emotional isolation and the powerful boiling up of a soul left separate; or Norwegian Wood where seclusion within a crowd drives one character mad and another toward redemption. I found myself seeing these characters´ lush souls in the landscape of Japan, just as their loneliness became evident in the society that surrounded me.
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2007 Fellowship Exhibition, Honorable Mention
The 2007 Fellowship competition was juried by Lynn McLanahan Herbert, Adjunct Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston. Colin Zelt was awarded the Carol Crow Memorial Fellowship and Amelia D´Entrone was awarded the HCP Fellowship. The six artists in this exhibition were chosen as honorable mention recipients and selected images of their work will be on display in the HCP gallery during the Fellowship Recipients´ exhibitions.
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PictureThis!
PictureThis! is a collaborative venture with The Children´s Hospital at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Clinic in Houston that results in an exhibition of the students´ work in the HCP gallery.
Since 2002, PictureThis! has successfully integrated photography into the Children´s Hospital´s art curriculum. HCP annually hosts an eight-week program at the hospital, as well as a weekend workshop at Camp A.O.K., a summer place run by the Cancer Clinic for patients in Magnolia, Texas. Students range from ages 6 — 16 years old.
"Through PictureThis!, patients were given the chance to express what they find worthwhile, meaningful, allowing them to look at their surroundings through a different perspective. The children developed a boost of self-esteem, which not only made them want to create and work more, but benefited them in terms of their treatment, leaving them in a cheerful, happy mood. Speaking for my child, PictureThis! was an incredibly wonderful experience." — Parent of a 2007 PictureThis! patient
On view at HCP are selections from this year´s projects, including a Polaroid alphabet scavenger hunt, Projected Drawing Project, and Photogram project.
This project is supported by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.
Houston Center for Photography
1441 W. Alabama St. - Houston