Chelsea Girls, 2010photographic series of 14, 20” h x 29” w, Epson Ultrachrome K3 ink, Epson Ultra Premium Luster Photo archival paper, edition of ten

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Chelsea Girls is a photographic series that illuminates the impersonality of the pristine, white-walled gallery spaces of the Chelsea district in New York City. It is neither a critique nor a celebration of the art market and its display strategies. Instead, the work documents façades and surfaces. Like portraits of people, the galleries portrayed attempt to fulfill an overarching role as ambassadors of cool, yet idiosyncratic elements poke through, like tusks of hair or bald sheen hovering above barricade-like reception desks. These small peculiarities of human nature, barely differentiated from the architecture, become relatable; gestures that break from their pretentious, sterile, confined and refined structures.

The simplicity and sheer banality of the subjects are striking; grouped together as a series, the galleries gain personas - people each with their own guise and particular shadings. Similarly, the photographs each depict a vista of white walls, yet their capture is off white, an altered perspective - the aspect of being a stranger in New York and thus, the ability to take notice of the desk quirks instead of the giant artwork.

Chelsea Girls is an exploration of the real and the virtual, peoples' images and projections of who they are, versus their actual lives. The title takes up this endeavour, as Chelsea Girls has multiple references which include the secretary position being feminized, and her potential dual-life as a prostitute, punk girl, or Warhol groupie. The fictional lives and guises of the gallery space and its personas relate to my ongoing exploration of virtual identities and relationships.

Catalogue

 

 

 

Chelsea Girls, 2010photographic series of 14, 20” h x 29” w, Epson Ultrachrome K3 ink, Epson Ultra Premium Luster Photo archival paper, edition of ten

swipe/drag image

Chelsea Girls is a photographic series that illuminates the impersonality of the pristine, white-walled gallery spaces of the Chelsea district in New York City. It is neither a critique nor a celebration of the art market and its display strategies. Instead, the work documents façades and surfaces. Like portraits of people, the galleries portrayed attempt to fulfill an overarching role as ambassadors of cool, yet idiosyncratic elements poke through, like tusks of hair or bald sheen hovering above barricade-like reception desks. These small peculiarities of human nature, barely differentiated from the architecture, become relatable; gestures that break from their pretentious, sterile, confined and refined structures.

The simplicity and sheer banality of the subjects are striking; grouped together as a series, the galleries gain personas - people each with their own guise and particular shadings. Similarly, the photographs each depict a vista of white walls, yet their capture is off white, an altered perspective - the aspect of being a stranger in New York and thus, the ability to take notice of the desk quirks instead of the giant artwork.

Chelsea Girls is an exploration of the real and the virtual, peoples' images and projections of who they are, versus their actual lives. The title takes up this endeavour, as Chelsea Girls has multiple references which include the secretary position being feminized, and her potential dual-life as a prostitute, punk girl, or Warhol groupie. The fictional lives and guises of the gallery space and its personas relate to my ongoing exploration of virtual identities and relationships.

Catalogue