The Light Factory

After attending the Karen Stock lecture, I went to another show just a couple blocks down.  The Light Factory at Spirit Square held a Surrealist photography exhibit.  It consisted of artists who produced work from the last ten years.  How do they fare?  Mostly hit-and-miss.  The photographers Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, in my view tried too hard to act surreal.  Their photographic series of people morphing into trees left me cold.  Jerry Uelsmann, whose work I am familiar with already, stood out the most in comparison to the others.  He brings a quiet grandeur to his work the same way Giorgio de Chirico once did during his lifetime.  Regarding Tom Chambers, he does not feel surreal to me at all.  If anything, his work resembles a normal Alice in Wonderland with his photographs of a girl in an old-fashioned dress and constantly surrounded by animals.

Another installation came from director Malena Bergman, photographer Eric Pickersgill, and Christopher Thomas.  Honestly, their collaboration did not stand out to me.  They put together a film and some photos of a nude woman in a river.  To refresh my memory, I found the film again online, and it consists of a woman swimming and pulling tiny boats (?) behind her.  This all felt very generic to me.  Of course, when one has spent a good part of one’s life looking art that features nudes doing weird things, it leaves one apathetic.  However, they did have photos done on giant fabric prints, and I now see that they want me to appreciate the technical skill of these works.  Finally, Joel Whitaker.  His work reminds me of David Lynch.  His photography shows normal looking people but with thick paint strokes coming out of their heads or engulfing them.  Reminds me of Lynch’s film, Six Men Getting Sick.  

All in all, not the most inspired show.

ETA: Removed some broken links.