On July 6th, Foley Gallery continues the 2023 edition of “the Exhibition Lab Exhibition,” a group show featuring work by Amanda BernSohn, Anna Paola Pizzocaro, Liz Steketee, Matthew Finley, Becca Screnock, Rick Wright, Teresa Camozzi, and Yvette Marie Dostatni. The exhibition will feature photographers exploring various genres, from documentary, autobiographical, and surreal to new media forms, including mixed media.
New York based photographer Amanda BernSohn’s works with available light and the people around her to explore concepts such as intimacy and interdependence, and how they change over time. Her series Cirrostratus is named after the very high, very thin sheets of clouds formed by ice crystals that, in certain instances, produce halos of light that can be the only indication of their presence. The photographs in Cirrostratus capture the fleeting and ephemeral fragments of everyday life, and point to the inherent interconnectedness of ordinary moments.
Inspired by classical composition and Dutch-styled still lifes, Anna Paola Pizzocaro’s exhibiting photographs are her personal testimony of the past three years. Reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently on the ways our lives were changed individually and collectively, her work expresses our pain, loneliness, and disorientation of recent years, but also the reconciliation, beauty, and hope that have remained within us.
Using mixed media, photographic montage, textiles, and the sculptural elements of photographs, Liz Steketee examines family, identity, and memory, and how they weave and bend within our collective humanity. Her process includes ripping and cutting fragments of her work, which encourages contemplation, and reconstructing the pieces back together in unexpected ways, which acts to mend that which is broken.
Matthew Finley’s series WHISPERING EDEN is a meditation on nature’s subtle tenacity in times of personal uncertainty. Turning his camera on a relative’s home and garden, and nature’s decorative icons on objects around him, his captivating, almost transcendent photographs explore humans’ deep connection to nature and the potential for reflection, recognition, and growth. Also found within his general practice, these exhibiting images expose his closely held emotions which would otherwise go unexpressed.
Becca Screnock’s photographic practice focuses on overlooked moments, intimacy, and relationships between people and spaces; her new series The Loneliest Road is no exception. On long drives down U.S. Route 50, Screnock searched for unexpected surprises within the forgotten and disappearing places she stumbled upon. Throughout her journey and its many detours, she collected images that function as an ambiguous travelogue, allowing viewers to construct their own narratives.
Using a combination of digital capture, scanned film, and A.I. image-to-image or text-to-image conversions, Rick Wright’s photographs explore the integration of A.I. imagery into photography as we know it. Beginning by staging an iPad in the frame to separate the digital world from the real world, Wright incorporated A.I. to open up doorways into fictitious worlds. Whimsical yet terrifying, Wright’s photographs examine the potentially darker consequences of technology.
Overlaying images of walls and hallways, doctors and hospital rooms, and opened and closed eyes, Teresa Camozzi’s fragmented collages examine the importance of human sight and the artist’s deep fear of losing it. Camozzi’s series Blind was inspired by her doctor finding both of her eyes’ viscera had multiple tears and were about to detach from the retina, causing blindness. After an emergency operation, her eyes and her sight were saved. The photographs in Blind serve to salute the courageous individuals who have lived throughout time without sight.
In her series My American Dream, Yvette Marie Dostatni examines the complex and fluid landscape of identity in The United States. Her photographs explore quintessential American principles such as freedom and patriotism, and highlight the contradictions that arise when these principles are viewed through a larger, more inclusive lens. Her photographs depict a vast array of diverse communities throughout America, that are at once connected through and divided by state lines, cultural disparities, and language barriers—boundaries that can, and often do, define and decide our lives in this country.
The Exhibition Lab Exhibition|Part 2 will remain on view through July 29th, 2023. Foley Gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday, 12 pm – 5:30 pm. To request images, please get in touch with the gallery at hello@foleygallery.com