Local Flavors: The Light Factory’s 2010 Annuale

One of the most striking things about the Light Factory’s Third Annuale is its homegrown feel. Of the six artists (out of more than 130 in the national call) selected by juror Alex Nyerges, Director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, five reside within but a few hundred miles of the gallery. Chalk it up to regional familiarity with the institution perhaps, but it does signal the breadth of photographic creativity in practice out there in the not-too-distant area.

True to its juried nature, the work is wide-ranging varying from Nicholas Dantona‘s straight ahead photography rooted in a transcendentalist vein to Aspen Hochhalter‘s wall-hung scrims festooned with colors and patterns resembling abstract textiles more than the half-fixed gelatin prints from which they are appropriated.

Diana Greene contributes ephemeral photographs that whispily utilize broad areas of white space and ghostly tones. Her images appear to be disappearing before your very eyes even though you know they are rooted in the firm, timeless subjects of landscape and the figure. I caught myself imaging an entire show of these white on white pictures as they transfix a certain fascination with the light capturing abilities of the medium itself.

Lori Vrba gets in touch with her inner-Sally Mann via her powerful images rooted in close-at-hand domesticity. Working with her adolescent children as her main subjects for this series of images entitled “safekeeping” Vrba explores the concept of maternal protection and she views her photographs as interlocutors. It’s tricky territory to simultaneously guard the precious and highly personal moments of adolescence while also offering them up for public consumption and Vrba’s images strive in mesmerizing fashion.

John Grant is the colorist of the bunch and it’s fitting that he utilizes a fairy tale theme to anchor his work. His images all posses a certain transcendent quality as if they are attempting to psychically transport themselves into another medium if not elsewhere entirely. You can tell Grant has fun with composition and his work seems about that pursuit first and foremost. A collage aestheitc and strong figure/ground sensibility permeates to invoke a whiff of Surrealist undertone.

The lone outsider in the show (geographically speaking) is Blue Mitchell of Portland Oregon whose inclusion shakes things up via his paradigm stretching printing techniques and unconventional methods. Burnt transparencies have become a specialization of his of late and while the term itself might make many photogs shudder, Mitchell is fearless in his pursuit of striking images that bubble (literally) with primordial effects. The effect is a hypnotic one imparted directly by the artist’s hand to lends a certain lenticular spectrality approaching the psychedelic.