MICRO/MACRO
2017-09-18Marilyn Bridges and Jeannette Klute both chose Earth’s natural and human-touched terrain as their subject matter. Micro/Macro illustrates how photographs of the Earth on both an intimate and aerial scale can be disorienting as well as familiar, and the inherent compositional parallels between the work of two very different artists.
Bridges photographs sites around the world that show signs of past or present human activities. Looking down from the open door of a small plane flying at an altitude between 300 and 1000 feet, her aerial photographs record a visual experience that is neither like standing on the ground, nor looking out the window of a commercial jet. Her black and white images flatten Earth’s terrain into patterns of light, dark and texture. Exact scale and orientation are not clear except through detailed examination.
Klute is known for her contributions to the technical development and expressive value of color photography in the mid-1900s, when few artistic photographers used color processes. She was hired by Eastman Kodak in 1939, one of few women in the field at the time, and by 1945 was head of the visual research studio in the company’s color technology division. Klute tested a variety of subjects and environments in her research and art, often turning to nature as a source of myriad colors and textures. Her photographs of tide pools emphasize the colors and patterns in these micro environments, with overall compositions that decline to privilege particular objects but rather aim to translate the fascination and wonder she felt towards shore life.
Opposite – Marilyn Bridges, Jagged Waves, Point Reyes, CA, 1981
Exhibition runs through to March 11th, 2018
Akron Art Museum
1 South High
Akron
44308 OH
