September 10 - October 31, 2021
Featuring the work of two local photographers, Erik Scherb (Woodstock, GA) and Madeleine Soloway (Decatur, GA), this exhibit juxtaposes Scherb’s play with light and movement with Soloway’s focus on shadows and stillness.
The vibrant motion portrayed in Erik Scherb’s work stands in stark contrast to the eerie stillness captured by Madeleine Soloway. Although both artists use the medium of photography, their work bears more resemblance to paintings than photographs. In fact, that ambiguity is an essential part of their work: it defiantly proclaims the presence of the artist’s hand within a medium that is known for its ability to replicate reality. Both artists utilize intricate post-processing techniques that significantly alter the image from its original form.
In Erik Scherb’s work, the digitally layered images result in crosshatched lines of blurred light that capture fragments of scenes that appear both familiar and strange. With only the slightest indication of the Atlanta locations where these photos were taken, recognition remains just out of reach. The significantly obscured subjects are transformed into orchestras of light that speed by and vibrate with energy. The sense of movement captured in these images is not just our imagination: physical movement is an important part of Scherb’s process. He carefully choreographs his own movements with camera in hand to create deliberate patterns that transform everyday scenes into ephemeral environments. The process itself comes into focus as the subject.
Madeleine Soloway also alters her photographs, but with manual rather than digital manipulation. Combining photography and printmaking, Soloway pairs disparate environments or imagery in order to fabricate narratives that feel both intensely intimate and undeniably universal. Shadowy silhouettes and remnants of gritty urban decay share space with out-of-place natural elements, like overgrown trees or flowing water. The viewer will begin to notice slight deviations from reality within her photographs - graffiti emerges from a tree canopy or broken warehouse windows provide entry into kudzu covered vistas. These unnatural pairings explore the innate human desire to exert control over that which cannot be controlled: nature. But, our constructed environment, just like nature, is in a state of constant evolution, leaving behind only subtle echoes of what came before. There is an undeniable sense of the transient within her work- of time, of memory, and of life - that seems to slip away faster the longer we look at them.
Through the creation of ambiguous and mysterious spaces, Scherb and Soloway provide ample room for viewers to weave their own narratives and use personal experiences to color their interpretations. The imagined spaces created in these manipulated photographs reference the interplay between past and present, order and chaos, silence and noise, permanence and fragility, and movement and stillness. Many images feel vaguely familiar, but also eerily distant and disorienting - like recalling a memory that degrades every time you access it. Scherb and Soloway capture the true definition of the uncanny: the psychological experience when the familiar is transformed into something strange.
