ROSEGALLERY is pleased to announce the West Coast debut of Nowhere but Here, photographs by Jocelyn Lee. Over thirty images including her most recent and previously unseen work will be on view 24 September through 19 November, 2011. A reception for the artist will be held Saturday, September 24, 2011 from 6-8pm.
Nowhere but Here will feature portraits as well as images of the exterior world; the lush trees and gardens that form the natural backdrop against which the lives of her subjects unfold. In both portraits and landscapes the artist utilizes a direct photographic approach to capture sensual surfaces in natural light. Keen attention is paid to organic features, from the topography of an aging woman's wrinkles, to the soft flesh of a zaftig figure on her bed, or the delicate layer of snow on an apple tree. The constructed world is similarly treated, so that gilt frames, wall coverings and other furnishings, however sumptuous or humble, take on a rich and inviting tactile quality.
For Jocelyn Lee, this very lush and textured material reality is critically linked to a more mysterious, perhaps mystical territory of the human spirit and she believes that it is a photograph, unlike a painting or drawing, which can hold the things we see as well as the things that we do not see, in relationship to one another. When Lee makes images, it is this connection between physical surroundings and unseen psychological states, which intrigues her. Using the tension that exists between herself and her subjects during a photo shoot, the artist creates a space where emotional spheres can be mined and generously revealed before her camera. The resulting images are endowed with an incredible intimacy and humanity. They resonate at once with vulnerability and a poignant dignity that is both individual and universal.
This is true for the portraits of women which will comprise the greater part of the exhibition, as well as the images from Lee's series Last Light: falling on parallel worlds,a body of work focused on the final days of her mother's life, which will also be on view. While her mother was dying of lung cancer, the artist compulsively recorded the world around her as a way to slow the inevitable passing of time. Using a variety of cameras including medium format, pinhole and digital, Lee made exposures in her mother's garden at various increments of time. These expressive images of the dogwood, delphinium and other vivid blossoms that were thriving inspite of her mother's suffering, combined with intimate portraits of her family as they prepared for the loss of a loved one, are a moving meditation on love, the beauty of the physical world, and ultimately, the transcience of both.
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