EXPOSURE 2019 at PRC

By Elin Spring

“They all contain secrets.” That is how one visitor described photographs by the fourteen artists exhibiting at EXPOSURE 2019, just opened at the Photographic Resource Center. Those photographers are Astrid Reischwitz, Cate Wnek, Gregory Jundanian, Hank Hauptmann, Jaina Cipriano, Jessica Burko, Judy Haberl, Kristen Joy Emack, Mary Zompetti, Molly Lamb, Navidreza Haghighi Mood, Nick Meyer, Regina DeLuise, and Reid + Factor. The show will be on view through August 11^th, 2019 in Lesley University College of Art + Design’s Van Dernoot Gallery, University Hall in Cambridge, MA.

“Untitled (Fire), 2016” from the series Raising Goosebumps by Cate Wnek (courtesy of the artist).

“Untitled (Strassenbahn), Linz, Austria, 2016” from the Strassenbahn series by Hank Hauptmann (courtesy of the artist).

EXPOSURE, the PRC’s annual juried exhibition aims to create a more edifying experience by including three to five images by each artist, selected this year from about 130 entrants by guest juror Mark Alice Durant. And despite a diversity of subjects, genres and processes, the show boasts a gratifying cohesion and mellifluous flow. Durant’s “secret?” His keen attraction to work that radiates “confidence” and possesses a “distinctive viewpoint.”

“Antoniette in Kitchen, Spinosa, Italy, 2017” from the series Rooms in the Dreamer’s House by Regina DeLuise (courtesy of the artist).

“King’s Gym, 2017” from the series The Local by Nick Meyer (courtesy of the artist).

“A man who loved the ocean, a man who feared the ocean, 2018” from the series This Looks Like a Paradise; This is Paradise by Navidreza Haghighi Mood (courtesy of the artist).

Diane Arbus once famously mused, “a photograph is a secret about a secret.” Of course, she meant good photographs, photographs that ponder profound, consuming matters like love and death. The images in EXPOSURE 2019 do seem to harbor “secrets about secrets,” sustaining a level of ambiguity that is at once alluring and mysterious. None of the works selected by Mark Alice Durant is a straight-forward document. All are interpretive, whether it is Molly Lamb contemplating grief and memory in her series Before the Trees (feature image), Cate Wnek considering the joys and terrors of motherhood in her series Raising Goosebumps, Hank Hauptmann’s street juxtapositions confounding reality and illusion in his Strassenbahn series, or Judy Haberl’s personality traits conveyed through the abstraction of markings left behind by The Chef’s Hand.

“The Chef’s Hand #1 (Jody Adams), 2018 from the series Traces by Judy Haberl (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas). Installation photo by Elin Spring.

“Five Months of Winter, 2018” from the series Remnants by Mary Zompetti (courtesy of the artist).

Regina DeLuise’s hushed B&W photographs from Rooms in the Dreamer’s House use the metaphor of home to create a “universal sense of what each of us crave.” In his series The Local, Nick Meyer’s images find a poignant paradox of pride and disillusionment in America’s left-behind towns. The contrasts of human fragility and resilience parallel the natural world in Mary Zompetti’s cameraless photographic series, Remnants. Jaina Cipriano’s vibrant, fantastical scenarios in The Garden boldly evoke a kaleidoscope of dreams and emotions.

“Moon Over Me, 2018” from the series The Garden by Jaina Cipriano (courtesy of the artist).

“Tapestry #6 (A Pleasure to Give), 2019” from the Spin Club Tapestry series by Astrid Reischwitz (courtesy of the artist and Gallery Kayafas).

The struggle for identity and the desire for connection are as timeless as civilization, explored with novel and insightful perspectives by photographers mining both history and the present. Navidreza Haghighi Mood invokes the unstable memory of his father in his series This Place Looks Like a Paradise; This is Paradise, while Astrid Reischwitz embroiders her ancestry into the present in her Spin Club Tapestry series, and Jessica Burko constructs imaginary histories, concealed in empty dresser drawers in her series Found Gone.

“High Hopes, 2019” from the series Found Gone by Jessica Burko (courtesy of the artist). Installation photo by Elin Spring.

“Jaffar S., Lou diamond’s Barbershop, Everett, MA, 2018” from The Hair Style Guide – A Community Portrait Project by Gregory A. Jundanian (courtesy of the artist). Installation photo by Elin Spring.

Gregory Jundanian finds the fragile balance between masculine bravado and vulnerability in his potent community Barbershop series, while Reid + Factor lace tension with humor in their subversive, feminist series Mad Habitat. In her series Cousins, Kristen Joy Emack captures intimate familial bonds between black girls with affirming and palpable grace. EXPOSURE 2019 is beguiling, offering several images by each photographer that entice with layered meanings and secrets worth discovering.

“Vitrine, 2018” from the series Mad Habitat by Reid + Factor (courtesy of the artists).

“Touch, 2015” from the series Cousins by Kristen Joy Emack (courtesy of the artist).

For more information, go to: https://prcboston.org/exposure-2019-artists/

Feature Image: “Untitled (Broken), 2017” from the series Before the Trees by Molly Lamb (courtesy of the artist and Rick Wester Fine Art, NY).