Our Artist-in-Residence, Jon McNeal, has photography on view in “Territories,” a two-person show at Art Zone 461. Jon’s work is featured alongside Heidi McDowell’s paintings- the first in a series of “couples” shows at Art Zone.
“Territories” is an interesting expression of West Coast grandeur, as seen by both artists. Owing to my East Coast upbringing, the imagery of Jon and Heidi’s limitless orchards and brooding seas, feels like the kind of big nature you can only find on the very brink of the Pacific.
After walking through the show I noticed a number of markers in Heidi’s paintings, inclusions of photographic “flaws” that are entirely intentional. Lens fringe, glare, and lens based depth of field views all reference her process.
For me, it was an unexpected combination, to be drawn into the weight and color of her landscapes, and become aware of the photographic indicators that, were they in a digital image, would have been edited out.
The cyan and magenta fringe served her compositions well, alongside sun glare and motion blurs in other shot-through-the-window works. All of these things seem so much a part of how we view photographs most often, that her imagery would have seemed more bare without them.
Jon sharing a few stories.
Be sure to catch their show at Art Zone 461, before it closes, on view through October 14.