Opening Thursday at Boston University’s Photographic Resource Center is Exposure 2012, the annual juried exhibition, selected this year by Alison Nordstrom, Director of Exhibitions at George Eastman House.

Nordstrom writes, “We need look no further [than these selections] to affirm that photography is alive and well, more diverse than ever in medium, approach….The overall quality of the work is high and the artists understand how their chosen medium can realize their ideas like no other.”

The exhibition features work by Mary Ellen Bartley, Thomas Brennan, Nan Brown, Odette England, Tony Loreti, Mark Lyon, Robert Moran, Garle Waltzer, David Wolf, and Diana Zlatanovski. Mark Lyon, whose Landscapes for the People series was also included in Photolucida’s Critical Mass 2011, writes:

My inspiration for creating photographs stems from finding and documenting peculiar juxtapositions in everyday places. This process often involves the act of rephotographing photographs.

The series, Landscapes for the People, looks at the use of romanticized wallpaper landscape photographs found in everyday environments. These wall sized photographic murals seem to serve a psychological function, given their potentially intimidating or banal locations, like dental [examination] rooms and laundromats. These landscape murals allow the viewer an alternate mindset to nerve racking procedures or the mundane activities of everyday life.

Wallpaper scenes depict grandiose views of snowcapped mountains, woodland streams, daisy fields, seascapes, and tropical beaches. These are, perhaps, the places we would rather be. They act to heighten our own daydreams with an idyllic panoramic view that envelops our line of sight. 

Elements of wear, installation approach, printing process, and wall fixtures allow the viewer insight into the photographic facade. The wallpaper can be seen in numerous conditions of wear. The power of the sun, and fluorescents, leave a mark of time through a draining of color. Seams of the paneled murals create a fracturing of the landscape. The seams fold, bend, tear and are taped back together. In other instances, the texture of the underlying wall reveals itself onto the surface of the landscape. 

The curious pairing of landscape and objects encourages the viewer into a closer inspection of their true relationship. This inspection discloses the actual location and purpose of such spaces. But, even after the truth of these photographs is revealed, we may find that our own daydreams allow this pairing to feel authentic.

Photographs from Landscapes for the People use the peculiar relationship between found images and operative items. The resulting photographs of these locations document the strange play of the functional environment and the idealized psychological landscape.

Opening reception, June 7, 6:30-8 pm: Exposure 2012. Photographic Resource Center, 832 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA.

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