Robyn Burton-Assignment #1

This exhibit was photographers adapting spaces to what they wanted to communicate in a photograph. The whole collection was about person and place and was presented by the artists in different ways. From the quote they used to describe the gallery as a whole it stated "... landscapes are a collection of stories," which is a good description to their intent shown in the photographs. At first when I came into the show I saw no connection other then different landscapes, and people. After the artists spoke about they're work, each were interested in connecting the space with a person, or an idea that had a meaning towards them. I believe the show was set up well in order to tell a story about each of the work and how they were all placed around the gallery in a line telling different stories about different places.

I picked Ryan Adrick's Photograph because it was the first to catch my eye. There are many colors that are bright from the graffiti, with a lot of urban colors of browns in her clothes and buildings. She is placed well in the composition of the buildings and the ground, which directs your eye around the whole image. I believe it was a c-print; also paired with another image that has many different lines in it and shapes like this photograph to make you look at the landscape, as much as her. All together the visual elements of this photograph are extremely appealing to the eye, and shows a strong sense of personality from her face to the landscape.

After listening to Ryan Adrick himself, he told us the meaning behind this photograph. This image is of a woman he had met while he was in Florence teaching. They met eating breakfast one morning out of random, and noticed that she was starring at him. He soon learned that she was sketching him which made him have a connection to her with being artist. They spoke all day about art, and asked if he could photograph her. He intentionally paired another photograph with her that I did not connect at first. The second image was of a railroad track that was used by the Nazis in Berlin, Germany. He had some sort of way of connecting the locations with history, which he stated he was a "history buff." Also her use of lines in her artwork and connecting it with the lines in the railroad tracks. After describing the whole series of photos he said its more about your own relationship with the images, and your connection to the photographs that was more important. This was true for some of the other artist in the gallery as well. I believe this show all together was good, and told stories of artist explorations and of adapting spaces.