boat polls

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on February 15, 2015 at 9:07am

Curators Comments:

 

I’m fascinated by a good number of your photographs on the site- the velvety blacks soften the dramatic contrast of value, while in other works color and repetition act as the dominant visual forces.  Of the black and white images, Boat Polls strikes me as particularly elegant in its simplicity of subject and composition.  Yet the poles approach animation as they move across the shifts in the textures and alternating values of the background wall.  There is grittiness to the piece; most surfaces are worn and distressed.  But the staggering of the lines from the poles act as clean and intentional breaks from the overall patina. Wild Bills Blues entices with a very different mood and color.  The blurred abstraction of the figure imparts universality and movement into the piece.  The pinkish red haze in the photo nicely connects segments of the interior, including the text from the graphic signage.  But I keep going back to the shadow of the musician.  His head and bodily posture have an eerily supernatural shape, not quite natural in the set of the head and shoulders.  These captured inconsistencies in what is expected retain my interest long after the formal elements of the design have been deciphered and appreciated.