WE THE PEOPLE: THE CYPRESS HILLS SERIES Portraits from the neighborhood by photographer Steven Laxton
February 4—March 12, 2017 Norte Maar 88 Pine Street Brooklyn, NY 11208
After living and working in New York City for over a decade, Steven Laxton, an award-winning photographer who originates from rural Australia, bought his first home in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn. As a first time home buyer, the artist found the process “grueling, but well worth it because now I call Cypress Hills my home.” Laxton was immediately struck by the open, welcoming attitude of the community and the amazing diversity of people and nationalities in the neighborhood. Eager to celebrate this diversity, Laxton set up a portable photography studio in the nearby Highland Park and invited the people of Cypress Hills to sit for his camera. “In the park,” Laxton states, “it seems on the weekend literally the whole world is represented. My intention of this ongoing portrait series is to celebrate the diversity and the people that make this community so unique.” Stunningly crisp and intimately sincere, the resulting portraits capture the faces of residents living and working in Cypress Hills. From toddlers to teens, sisters and brothers, friends and neighbors, fathers, mothers, and elders, Laxton’s portraits are heroic in their portrayal of the proximal, the immediate, and the direct. Each photograph in this ongoing series is a suspended moment offering a contemporary take on the classic bond between artist and subject. We The People: The Cypress Hills Series is an enlightened and truthful glimpse of the humanity around us. “New York is a city that is forever evolving, and I want to preserve this moment by celebrating the people that make Cypress Hills what it is today.” — Steven Laxton
ABOUT STEVEN LAXTON Steven Laxton was born in rural Australia and, after moving to Adelaide, he began shooting for local magazines and clients while he was still a teenager. Recognition came early when, in 2008, he was named one of the “15 Rising Stars of International Photography” by American Photo Magazine. When Communication Arts named him a “Fresh” artist in 2009, it coincided with the inclusion of his series on Holocaust survivors in the book and project Afterwards: Contemporary Photography Confronting the Past, curated by Nathalie Herschdorfer of the Musée de l’Elysée. In 2012, Steven was awarded the Arnold Newman Prize for his evocative photo essays and portraits. That same year, he also earned the Picture of the Year International Feature award and a PDN award for his project Circo El Salvador featuring images of nomadic circus families in El Salvador. He was named the 2013 International Friend of El Salvador as a result of the series. Steven’s images were included in the American Photography 29 collection for 2013. Also that year, a film he directed for Rewrite Your Story won several Art Directors awards including best direction and casting. The film also collected a Deadly Award. In 2014, he was named one of PDNs 20 emerging filmmakers to watch. In 2015, he was selected again for the PDN Annual for his series on a transgender cabaret in Thailand. The honors continued in 2016, too. He was selected for “American Photography 32” and was included in the Communication Arts annual for his recent advertising campaign for Horizant. Laxton’s work engages a heightened nature, injecting a dreamy quality as a comment on how memory interacts with reality. Memory is far more ephemeral than photographs, something that Steven is particularly aware of in his portraiture. He explains, “A portrait is a record of your interaction with someone. It’s who they are and what you shared.” Laxton’s work has been exhibited internationally and is in the collection of public institutions including the Portland Museum of Art.
stevenlaxton.com
All works are Untitled and were photographed on location in Highland Park, Summer 2016.
norte maar 88 Pine Street | Brooklyn, NY, 11208 | nortemaar.org hours: weekends, 1–6 PM | always by appointment Norte Maar for Collaborative Projects in the Arts is a 501(c)3 non-profit arts organization founded in 2004 by curator Jason Andrew and choreographer Julia K. Gleich with a founding mission to create, promote, and present collaborations among the visual, literary, and performing arts to connect emerging artistic communities and unite cultural forces to foster artistic expression and raise the imaginative energy in us all.