Shawn Bush: Angle of Draw
Laura Chasman: Willard and Curtis
Kristen Joy Emack: Cousins
On view from June 6th – July 24th, 2021
Shawn Bush: Angle of Draw
Through the lens of environmental dominance and quest for unsustainable fuel sources, Angle of Draw analyzes the intersection of power and whiteness via Western America’s voracious use of its natural resources. By combining mid and early 20th- century propaganda photographs with present-day photographic interventions, this work interrogates systems that honor and recycle a white and androcentric ideology for social, political, and economic control.
The images from Angle of Draw are a mix of straight photographs and in-camera collages created from a collection of purchased negatives & prints. The acquired archives come from a White male prospector searching for gold in the American West during the early 1900s and a San Francisco Bay Area/Detroit propaganda photographer active during the 1960s and early 1970s. The visual language and lighting employed in my images reflect those from the propaganda archives to connect pivotal times of liberation and fear to social unrest. The collages use in-camera masking and multiple exposures to combined media from the collection with obsolete technologies, rudimentary hand tools, and diagrams taken from surveying manuals to develop a syntax that deconstructs the violent relationship man has with the natural environment.
For the last six years, my practice has focused on the interaction of gender, whiteness, and Western systems of power. The motivation for creating this work revolves around lifelong interactions with the American patriarch, perpetually being discontent with the authority that has been given and assumed to a group of men. After moving (2018) to a state under a president whose entire ethos and identity reflect the fragility of losing position and authority, the deteriorating empire of white maleness has never been more present in my life. The physical, social, and economic landscapes surrounding me are entirely dependent on antiquated methods of creating and holding power, systemizing environmental degradation to delay the inevitable collapse of their necessity. SB 2021
Bush received his B.A. in 2010 from Columbia College, Chicago, and his M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2018. Bush was awarded the T.C. Colley Excellence in Photography Grant, 2017; Lenscratch Student Prize; Independent Publisher Award in Photography; Manifest Gold Book Award and was a PDN 30 nominee for 2018. His work is in the collection of The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; Benaki Museum, Athens Greece; Candela Gallery, Richmond, VA; and the Rhode Island School of Design. Bush’s monograph, A Golden State, published by Sky Lark Editions is now available.
Laura Chasman: Willard and Curtis
As we cautiously emerge from the darkness of the last 14 months and start to reconnect in person, we begin to share our personal journeys. During these months of isolation, there were many experiences of hope, creativity, and moments of joy. Laura Chasman’s newest series of paintings of the twin brothers, Willard and Curtis, two Scottish Highland steers, is one of those positive happenings. Willard and Curtis are gentle comforting souls and brought Chasman to a place of calm and solace
Over a year ago with Covid-19 contagion all around us, political and social unrest and violence, and our world near ecological collapse I found myself enraptured with Willard and Curtis, twin Scottish Highland steers. They live nearby at Allandale Farm, a working farm (and a much-loved spot) where in the warmer months I buy local produce and plants for my garden.
At first glance these shaggy, tangled coated beasts appear out of time and place, like some mystical beings or prehistoric animals. (I did learn that Scottish Highland steers are the oldest cattle breeds, originating in the Scottish Highlands as early as the 6th century). These old souls move slowly, are often still and silent. They are removed from our world.
I went often to photograph and videotape them, fascinated by the way they looked and behaved and how they appeared in the landscape, like black mounds of earth. I would come back to my studio with the fresh experience of having just seen them, along with new images from which to base my paintings. I loved painting their tangled coat of hair- so suggestive of dripping paint, and their large, curved horns that defined and separated these beautiful animals from the landscape. Being with them, observing how calm and peaceful they were quieted my mind. Their presence was strangely comforting and gave me respite from my world of anxiety and uncertainty. I imagined Willard and Curtis as protectors, substitutes for nurturing figures. LC 2021
Collections containing Chasman’s works include New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Boston Public Library, Copley Square; and Simmons College.
Kristen Joy Emack: Cousins
We are excited to be exhibiting Kristen Joy Emack’s family portraits – Cousins is a collection of intimate images of her daughter, Appaloosa, Apple for short, and her two female cousins, Leyah and Kayla. The series spans years of the girls sharing who they are and supporting each other from childhood to young adulthood. We share in their challenges and celebrations. Recently when Emack discussed the series with the girls, they all agreed that they wanted the project to continue – they wanted to have a visual presence. Emack embraces the wonder and joy of a child’s growth and the child’s relationship to family and others. Words like beautiful, strong, confident, tender, come to mind when viewing the work. We accompany the girls on this journey.
The relationship between black and brown children is not that pervasive in any form of media – TV, books, advertising, art, even dolls available for play. Now in their teens, the girls are becoming much more aware of “the white eye” and “have begun to take ownership of the images and the process”. With Cousins they see themselves and their everyday lives represented in a positive way, giving them a visibility and presence in the world. “I’m the white mother of mixed-race children and aunt to black nieces. But the girls and I belong to each other, love each other and are intertwined as family. Photographing them is a natural expression of our relationship.”
There is something sacred about the lives of girls, their innocent, confident relationships to themselves, their world and one another is gravitational. I’ve been photographing my daughter and nieces for close to a decade. Between them is an intimate and spiritual knowledge, both ordinary and extraordinary, and my aim is to capture the brilliance of their communion and kinship.
Images of black girls are not well documented, or widely published and, while my work is not exclusively about representation, one added intention of this series is to bring forward that perspective. Overall, however, my hope is that when they look back on this work, they will see their beauty, and their devotion to each other, and will find themselves here, in this work we made together, reflected with love. KJE 2021
Kristen Joy Emack received Honorable Mention in Smithsonian Magazine, 2003; she is the 2015 Winner of FACES Gallery, PDN Magazine (Photo District News); 2019 Cambridge Art Association National Prize Show, 2nd place winner; 2019 Photolucida; received the Michael Reichmann Project Grant; 2019 Mass Cultural Council Fellow grant recipient; and the 2020 McDowell Residency - to be attended in 2021 due to quarantine.