The naked goddess stands beneath a towering bristlecone pine in Colorado.
Travelling the Mind’s Eye Through the Lens of Five Photographers
by Christina Saylor
The naked goddess stands beneath a towering bristlecone pine in Colorado. In New York City, the artist and the mistress lay shrouded in bliss as the queen hosts a tea party. A lonely white house in Texas stands sharply still in a landscape that flies by in a blur of vibrant color. The vast ice-checked 63rd parallel of Greenland explodes through a tiny space in the bumper of a boat. A club of sworn virgins from Knoxville take soft-porn snapshots of each other. Is this visual feast a David Lynch tale? It is not. Although if David Lynch chose to probe the minds of five photographers for his next feature, the film may indeed resemble this intriguing wonderland hodge-podge of rich visuals, narrative enticement, unfolding microcosms, and erotic exploration.
Bristlecone Pine, the goddess beneath the tree, is the creation of Stephen Collector, whose series The Goddess is currently being shown online at http://www.artzar.com. The artist, the mistress, and the queen are the main characters in Kari O’Donnell’s online narrative photo exhibit, The Affair, at http://www.massivestudios.info/gallery. The moving landscape is part of Coke Wisdom O’Neal’s series Views of America, which can be seen online at http://www.mixedgreens.com. The microcosm of a salt-spattered boat bumper turned grand landscape belongs to Lee Stoetzel whose series Accidental Tourism is also currently online at http://www.mixedgreens.com. The erotic Knoxville virgins were documented by Sarah Martin, whose work will appear in Regarding Gloria at White Columns Gallery from October 25 through December 1.
Each of these artists has used photography to create, recreate, or explore some part of their own universe in a provocative and intriguing manner. Together, their visuals intertwine to weave a fascinating kaleidoscope of colors, places, identities, and ideas. Separately, their photographic gems are equally captivating and enticing.
Inspired initially by the beauty of the female form, Stephen Collector’s work for the Goddess series became a pursuit of balance within. Collector was drawn to the goddess as one of the oldest known deities and found that mythological themes often focus on self-transformation. As the goddess in her various forms manifested in front of his camera, Collector realized his own lack of the effeminate, and the project became an attempt to both heal his own deeply wounded feminine aspects and to unify internal male and female principles. Collector comments that to take a concept driven out of dreams, make it physical, and capture it on film was an enormous challenge. It was a challenge well met. The resulting images dramatically illustrate the mysterious and powerful aspects of the ethereal feminine. Collector’s goddesses, appearing naked or adorned with masks or other symbolic costume pieces, channel feminine energy in the hard masculine landscapes in which they are placed. The contrast and depth of the black and white tones, achieved through use of the Zone System, further enhances the feminine/masculine duality and evokes a sense of the dynamic interplay between the two powerful forces as they struggle for balance. The presentation at Artzar enhances these concepts by exhibiting the photos in two panels: one full view landscape and one close-up of the goddess figure.
Through images and poetry clips, Kari O’Donnell weaves a tale of artist, queen, and mistress that delves into the interconnected realms of relationship, perception, and dream. The encounters of the main characters produce a rippling affect, and O’Donnell simultaneously unfolds events from an alternate reality that take place either in another physical space such as a different room or part of the city or in an adjacent psychological space such as the characters’ minds. The drama begins with a moment of bliss between artist and mistress, and from there the reader must choose a path forward or back using arrows to navigate the main reality. The image of a red door serves as a gateway between this story and the alternate spaces. O’Donnell employs both color and black and white images, a choice which cleverly engenders a vivid contrast between worlds. The brief poetry is placed like hints on a scavenger hunt. Theatrical make-up and costume, tea party elements, and mysterious masked figures create an Alice-in-Wonderful feel while the movement from still to still echoes the form of a silent movie. O’Donnell was drawn to narrative through the curiosity of her audience. People always asked what happened before and after the moment of a photograph. In developing this allegory, O’Donnell explored her own fascination with the power that lies in people coming together. The photographs reveal how others are emotionally stirred by these events, the infinite possibilities in the expression of one moment, and how the mind creates it’s own mysterious realities.
For his series Views of America, Coke Wisdom O’Neal uses the camera as a tool and light and color as media to paint landscapes, which are, above all else, about capturing beauty in a world where ugliness not only exists but is often emphasized. They are, however, also about long stretches of open road, motion in travel, and a rediscovery of America’s iconic countryside tableaus. This work developed out of a previous series of O’Neal’s, which featured TV-screen portraits of American icons such as Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, and Marlon Brando. The landscapes of Views of America maintain a sense of unearthing and recreating portrayals of the images that surrounded a previous generation. The photographs are taken out of a car window during road trips, and the film is cross processed to create intense, deep hues. Their painterly appearance is further enhanced by enlargement to a 26 x 39 format. In Views of America, 5, described above, the house stays in focus while the enlargement causes the rest of the scene to slightly pull apart. Not all of O’Neal’s prints have an object in focus. In many the entire landscape is in motion. Regardless, they hold a unique amalgamation of attributes that evoke not only the freedom found on the road but a sense of passing time and the blurred reminiscence of memory as well. O’Neal’s own road-trip memories go back to his childhood when his parents would admonish his attempts to shoot photos out the window, telling him the pictures would certainly come out blurry. Indeed, they do, in a most beautiful and vivid manner.
Lee Stoetzel’s series Accidental Tourism travels the world without physically going anywhere. The grand landscapes identified in their titles by parallels on the globe, are actually very close shots of ordinary local objects. The 63rd parallel runs through the Bering Sea and Greenland, and although Stoetzel has never been to Greenland and has never seen icebergs, his detail of a black rubber boat bumper spattered with salt spray mimics an aerial view of an ice-bejeweled sea. Stoetzel’s discovery of these microcosmic landscapes began during the confinement of New York winter when intrepid weather encourages even the stalwart to stay indoors. One frame in a roll of film shot in his Riverdale home revealed an entire world hidden in the details of an old ratty windowsill. Enticed by the idea of seeing what is not supposed to be seen and finding beauty in the objects that exist in his daily environment, Stoetzel loaded up on macro equipment and began to seek expansive naturescapes in nooks, crannies, and tile grout. The window sill became the marshes of the Gulf Coast of Florida (30th parallel), and a chipped mirror and the top of a sink’s backsplash became the Galapagos (7th parallel). Stoetzel has always gravitated toward the details and admits to being caught mesmerized by the salt shaker on the dinner table for long periods of time. A self-identified arm-chair traveler, Stoetzel rides the lens to faraway places, utilizing black and white film to add a layer of distance between object and destination. The photographs become fascinating souvenir postcards of the mind’s journey.
Sarah Martin also found her photographic material close to home. The photo shoots Martin documented, which she describes as somewhere between soft porn and swimsuit issue, were conducted by young women with whom she attended church or Christian high school in Knoxville. All in their mid-twenties, the women swore an oath to remain virgins until they are married. Many now find themselves without college degrees, unmarried, and living at with their parents. Martin’s interest in documenting the clique’s semi-erotic photo sessions is not an ironic commentary on the situation, but rather an investigation of why the women seek to portray themselves in this manner. Martin further explores issues of young women in the conservative south through a series of twin photos. This project was launched after a club member requested that Martin take one portrait that she could give to her parents and another portrait that she could give to her boyfriend. Intrigued by this premise Martin began a series of young women posed in each scenario. She allows the women to choose the location and their attire. The images display a forceful, eager desire within these women to become an idealized version of someone else’s expectations. Martin states that she has gained an understanding of how such stereotypes perpetuate the "myth of a perfect southern woman," one who is both the untarnished daughter and the sexy girlfriend. Martin’s images have a snapshot quality that lend an everyday, familiar feeling to the existence of these myths.
Other exhibits by the above photographers are as follows: Stephen Collector: Toltec Power Journeys at the Wellness Center in Denver, CO through December 15, Law of the Range at the Tam O’Neil Gallery in Denver ongoing, Law of the Range, Alliance Art Center, Alliance, NE from March 3 through April 18, 2003. Coke O’Neal: interior landscapes of medicine cabinets showing as part of an exhibit at Paint Gallery, 126A Front Street in DUMBO from October 11-November 3.
