Nextlevelpittsburghportfolioaugust2012

Portfolio review

Aaron Blum is an artist from Appalachia. He received his BFA in Photography from West Virginia University and his MFA in Photography from Syracuse University.

He exhibits both nationally and internationally and is the recipient of numerous awards.

I v ette S p r ad l i n lives and works in Pittsburgh. She received her BFA in Photography from the University of Georgia and her MFA in Photography from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia. Her work focuses on subcultures and the spaces they inhabit, from punks and skateboarders to Cuban exiles in the United States.

J oh n P e ñ a is a multidisciplinary artist from Washington State, who lives and works in Pittsburgh.

Fetching the Doctor, 2010 Archival inkjet print

D y l a n Vito n e is a photo-artist who holds a BA from St. Edward’s University and an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art. He is Associate Professor in the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. His photographs have been exhibited widely and collected by numerous museums.

Ro b e r t Racz k a is a photo-artist, writer and curator who lives and works in Pittsburgh.

Text – Rajesh P u n j is a London-based writer, curator and collector of contemporary works, with a specialist interest in modern and contemporary art from India, Pakistan and the Middle East. He has an academic background in European and American art history.

Aaron Blum Scare Crow, 2010 Archival inkjet print

88

Next Level

Mon river, 2010 Archival inkjet print

A aron B lum is a photographer from Appalachia, located within West Virginia, from where he forensically watches over his homeland recording the balances and imbalances of an altering geography. Appalachia appears like a corner of God’s Earth where the lives of the people are conditioned by the maturing landscape. Born and Raised: Reflections of a World Set Aside is a telling series of photographs that are as unnerving as they appear wholesome. Mon River, 2010 is a subdued shot of an idyllic landscape that stretches into the distance, marred only by the dishevelled foreground comprising a burnt-out fire, bottles, cans and general detritus. The Living Room, 2010 appears like a scene from The Stepford Wives in which the interior has an unconscious symmetry to it. Scare Crow, 2010 is an image of a black crow swinging from a dead tree; dead for some time in the cold light of day. Untitled, 2010 is a close-up shot of a sofa pressed up against netted curtains as the daylight illuminates the creases and crevices of this soft furnishing. Fetching the Doctor, 2010 is a glorious photograph of a green, panelled shelf, upon which a series of dated objects and ornaments are placed, suggesting something of the clientele or inhabitants of this interior. All emblems of this corner of the Earth, they are as beguiling as they are mysterious. Layers of Blum’s work share similarity to Alec Soth, in that the contents of reality are distinct from the meaningful nature of the real.

89

Tara by the Allegheny River in The Strip District, Pittsburgh, PA, 2011 Archival inkjet print 102 cm x 127 cm

Heather in Manchester, Pittsburgh, PA, 2011 Archival inkjet print 102 cm x 127 cm

Untitled Cloud Series (Shadow), 2011 Video still An excerpt from a video in which I am documenting my shadow appearing and disappearing in the grass

Pittsburgh-based I vette S pradlin ’s photo-works are as sensitive as they appear insensitive at first glance. In her 2006 series Cuba, Spradlin records a small table that appears prepared for a meal: plastic beakers, forks and dry slivers of bread divided into four. A grainy portrait of Cuban aristocrats is pinned to a larger billboard, rooted to the pavement against a dilapidated government building. A dishevelled bedroom, unpainted and uncarpeted is, nevertheless, furnished with ghetto-blaster style speakers, a TV and video recorder. More poignant still is a photograph of an aging television set resting in a corner of a room, upon which a red coloured porcelain ship rises up over the turbulent water, that is sandwiched between a framed portrait of a mature woman and a photograph of a couple poised for a piece of history. From Everything Changed, Then Changed Again, 2011, Spradlin photographs middle aged women identified by their location. Spradlin is an observant photographer absorbing everything she experiences in a catalogue of images.

90

Next Level

Untitled Cloud Series (Outrunning Clouds), 2011 Video still An excerpt from a video in which I am racing with a cloud

J ohn P e ñ a lives and works in Pittsburgh. More artist than photographer working, as he does, in multiple media, Peña has a playfulness about him. Letters to the Ocean, 2003 is a poetic installation of hundreds of returned letters that are heavily defaced as a consequence of having been sent to the Pacific Ocean by the artist. After some two weeks circulating sorting offices and mail bags these false entities come back damaged and dated for exhibition. From Peña’s Untitled Cloud Series, highlights include Outrunning Clouds, which is an amusing but wonderfully poetic attempt by the artist to literally outrun a moving cloud, as it rises up and over the open plain. Another from the series Shadow #1 is an incredibly simple observation piece of the artist’s own shadow silhouetted onto goose grass, appearing and disappearing, before reappearing again. Leaf Shadow is Peña’s humorous attempt reorganising a pile of dry autumn leaves onto the shadow of a tree. Upon completing his temporary sculpture, obviously the tree’s shadow has moved on and it appears Peña’s sculpture is misplaced and misjudged, until of course the shadow returned to its original position and retriggers his work.

91

Sprinkler, 2007 Archival inkjet 41 cm x 216 cm Courtesy of dnj Gallery

General Cool, 2011 Archival inkjet 43 cm x 157 cm Courtesy of dnj Gallery

Construction Site, 2011 Archival inkjet 43 cm x 203 cm Courtesy of dnj Gallery

Untitled, 2012 Inkjet print 76 cm x 51 cm

D ylan V itone is Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. He records states of America through an elongated lens; his panoramic photographs recall the work of British artist Sam-Taylor Wood in terms of format. The majority of Vitone’s US works are black-and-white: understated images of apparently ordinary happenings. It is when he leaves his home soil for the more ‘alien’ circumstances of Doha, Qatar, that his stylised approach appears to work much more effectively. A beautiful panoramic shot of men bent double on the pavement proves an endearing photograph of the elemental strength of religion upon its people. An apocalyptic landscape of twisted steel and disengaged rubble litters an industrial site in the vain hope of reshaping the city. A technological masterpiece of steel and glass is lit by artificial light that illuminates vast tower blocks that stand side-by-side, and boiler-suited immigrant workers appear gloved and masked, as they lay artificial grass into the crevasses of a new stretch of roadside curb. A shopping plaza, divided in two by a thread of artificial water, attempts to resemble Venetian canals, cleverly positioning consumerism as the alternative religion in the city. All of these images are representative of the jarring forces that determine this city on a daily basis.

92

Next Level

Untitled, 2010 Inkjet print 76 cm x 51 cm

R obert R aczka is a photographer from Pittsburgh who, predominantly, photographs the city in sequences that are determined by his walking and watching, much like a flâneur: stopping, composing and recording elements of the city with his camera. The work Landmarks 2010 appears as a series of Kodak style snap shots of unusual and unstaged compositional juxtapositions of objects and neon signs through shards of glass and refracted light. Fake plastic flowers are tied as a bouquet to a trailer; ivy and thick greenery overwhelm a graffitied out-posted railing. An enormous ice-cream cone sits in a shop window, beside a beef tomato and bottled syrup.

An unfathomable photograph of a depleted lunar landscape that might be as much a model as it is the real thing. Beside a beautiful composition of a rusting cog coiled machine that is purposely entangled in the multiple reflections of a building, telegraph poles and street lights outside by Raczka photo shot through glass. Another is of a scrumpled piece of silver foil bent in multiple directions, as the reflecting light decorates the surface like shards of light on the face of a space craft; which collectively make for an engaging portfolio of uncomposed portraits of his city.

93