The Photographic Resource Center’s 28th annual “Exposure” exhibition opened Friday at the VanDernoot gallery in Porter Square. Juried by Lesley MFA alum Samantha Johnston, there’s a subtle yet profound energy that ripples across every image.
This year’s “Exposure” is a series of triptychs: Purely by chance, Johnston selected three works from each of the 13 artists. In the way motifs can deepen the emotional impact of a piece of music, seeing three examples of each photographer allows the work to wash over you with an increasing intensity.
A sense of loneliness and melancholy seeps through many of the images. In Dean Terasaki’s, desolate shots of the Manzanar internment camps of the 1940s are juxtaposed with found letters written by interned Japanese-Americans. The fragmented quality of Amy Giese’s self-portraits mirrors her experience of long Covid; Jeffrey Heyne’s pieces eerily combine images of Colorado ranch land with a vintage moon map from 1910. Amid that sense of desolation and decay, there are signs of life: Astrid Reischwitz’s still lives are so lush, they look like paintings. In Elizabeth Wiese’s forest self-portraits, her blurred movements are soft and peaceful.
Greer Muldowney’s works show us that creativity and destruction are two sides of the same coin. Her series “Monetary Violence” shows a Somerville teeming with life and gentrification, simultaneously growing and full of decay. In one striking image, the foreground shows a dilapidated house in Union Square; in the background, we see the early signs of construction bringing a USQ building to fruition.
Most of the artists’ three photographs are grouped, with the exception of Andrew Zou. In his incredible “Self Portrait by the Sea,” which rests above the gallery’s desk, the subject stretches out nude in front of a cargo ship that is packed with shipping containers. It’s a powerful placement that draws out the contrast between his other two works, in which he poses with calligraphy wrapped around him. The only student in the exhibition, Zou has nonetheless mastered the self-portrait; his images are charged, impossible to forget.
“Exposure 2024” is on view through Sept. 29 at VanDernoot Gallery at the Lesley University’s University Hall, 1815 Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square, Cambridge.
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