by Violette Stevenson

This fall I exhibited my photographs in a gallery located in Brooklyn. For about a year I curated and took photos for the vision that I wished to create. The photographs were taken in a wide range of locales–Texas, New Mexico, California, New York, and France. While selecting the photos, I found myself drawn to their warm transparent color palette. My goal was to be able to meld black and white and colored photos without having a high contrast difference. The shared quality among these very different environments provided a visual unity when you looked at my show as a whole. Living in a world fixated on division, the unexpected harmony that came about my show reminded me that we are more alike than we assume.

My exhibition guidelines were very open and allowed me to have free range of how I wished to exhibit my photographs. Part of the agreement was to choose a non profit organization that half of the funds would go to. The organization that I chose was Artistic Noise. A non-profit that supports young adults who have been placed  in bad mental health facilities and have been incarcerated, helping them express themselves through art. My choice behind the organization stemmed from wanting to support local artists as well as supporting it in a way that allows people to feel seen and heard through their own artform. 

As the Opening of my show approached I thought about how I wanted my viewers to see and interpret my show. I found it important to ask what the viewers thought of my work and turn it into a relationship with them. I thought of myself and the relationships I like to have with art. I was inspired by the relationship that Wolfgang Tillmans brings to his exhibitions, creating a story within the show and within each piece. The questions I asked for the viewers at my show were:  What exists beyond the presented square? What feelings or memories arise when you observe the photograph? What places or people in your life do they bring to mind? Embracing the differences of our backgrounds and our present environments to find a common unity, is the only way that we will be able to progress and move forward. This selection of photos is offered to represent and remind us of the harmony of the whole.

When I attended the Portfolio Critic Day a few weeks before my show someone from one of the art universities described my photographs as “Quietly Loud.” These two words really resonated with me because it felt as if it did not only describe my photographs but how I felt when taking them. Each photograph had a simple layout and yet was powerful when standing on its own. The “Quiet” quality that I especially resonated with in many of my photographs was the amount of negative space that was in each piece. This quality I felt gave space for the viewers to interpret each piece.

Being able to see each piece hung, and viewing my own work in a professional setting was extremely gratifying and allowed me to see my work in a different light. When laying out my photos in the space, being able to create a story within each piece I found to be very interesting. I began grouping my photos in pairs and worked around them by adding one more piece to each story. These photographs had become really private and by the time of the show I had grown an attachment to each piece and associated certain memories with each individual photo. Being able to watch people at my opening interpret each photograph and notice slight details in shadows and reflections I found to open the way that I thought and saw my own pieces.