Lisa Fairstein Exhibition

Of a Color, 2017

Deep Shade

Lisa Fairstein

Opening reception: Wednesday, May 3, 2017 | 6 – 8 pm
Exhibition dates: May 4 – June 3, 2017

Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York presents Deep Shade, an exhibition of photographs by 2016 Workspace Resident Lisa Fairstein.

For the series Deep Shade, Lisa Fairstein finds influence in the visual shorthand of web-based photos. Drawn to images made for online consumption, she seeks out isolated poetic fragments worthy of deeper consideration. A mysterious yellow liquid that forms a stark contour on the dark ground, or awkwardly framed limbs gesturing ambiguously – her aim is to heighten the charged and consequential elements of these fractured moments.

Fairstein’s creative process involves sourcing and re-staging these instances, often using printed backgrounds, props and hired models. Her approach gives her photographs an uncanny sense of construction, an element that makes visible the tension between consumption and critique. By capturing the images in higher resolution, and presenting them at a size and speed made for contemplation, she creates slow photographs motivated by accelerated looking.

The title, “Deep Shade,” alludes jokingly to Fairstein’s use of shadow and color, and tonally to an irreverence she finds to be an important component of web imagery. This same wry spirit inhabits much of her work, amplifying the self-awareness and complicity in her relationship to contemporary image culture.

Lisa Fairstein has exhibited at Pioneer Works, NY; the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, PA; the Wassaic Project, NY; Fresh Window Gallery, NY; Signal Gallery, NY; the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford College, PA ; {TEMP} Art Space in collaboration with NURTUREart, NY; and at Vox Populi, PA. She has been awarded residencies by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Wassaic Project, and Pioneer Works. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts. Lisa lives and works in New York City.

PRESS

In her new photography exhibition “Deep Shade,” on view at Baxter Street at the Camera Club of New York, artist Lisa Fairstein examines the digital imagery we see on Instagram and Tumblr. She drew inspiration from photos stored on her own phone and online to restage the scenes as formal shoots: Models taking a mirror selfies, a pool of yellow paintdripping onto the asphalt, and shadows moving through pink curtains in a luminous window. New York Magazine’s The Cut.

The exhibition currently on view at Baxter Street at the Camera Club of New York (CCNY), titled “Deep Shade,” is the result of what happens when you take images made for fast consumption (think speeding by a roadside billboard or flipping through instagram) and remake them within the conventions of more considered viewing. The work, by photographer Lisa Fairstein, is the culmination of her three-month residency with Baxter Street at CCNY, an institution that she says, “does an incredible job supporting lens-based artists” through their financially supported residency program that offers space, material, and facility access to the International Center of Photography labs to four photographers annually. Coming off back-to-back residencies — first at Pioneer Works and then Baxter St — Fairstein is now looking forward to retreating to her own space for a while, playing with the ideas that her time at Baxter Street brought forth. She spoke to Artinfo about this new body of work, and ways of looking — fast and slow. Blouinartinfo.

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Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York is a 501(c)3 artist run arts organization. Each year, Baxter St at CCNY selects four emerging photographers living in New York City for the Workspace Residency Program, which offers them analog and digital workspace at the International Center of Photography, access to the Baxter St at CCNY community and programs, and solo exhibitions at Baxter St. This exhibition is the last in a series of four solo exhibitions by 2016 winners of the Workspace Residency, supported by the Jerome Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, Kodak, and FUJIFILM North America Corporation.