“It was serendipitous.” That’s how Suzanne L’Heureux, founder and director of Oakland’s Interface Gallery, describes the studio visits and conversations that ultimately produced the exhibition The sun shot out from its silver side.
The intimate installation, which pairs photographic work by Gregory Kaplowitz and Elizabeth Bernstein, captures the medium’s foundational tenet — translating light into solid forms — and explores its physical, psychological, and likewise serendipitous potential.
Both bodies of work demonstrate the artists’ interest in light and its effects, but the methods by which they arrive at those ends are notably different.
Kaplowitz creates photograms, a process actively explored by 19th-century photography enthusiasts in which objects are positioned on chemically treated, light-sensitive paper — or fabric in this case — and exposed to sunlight.
While completing a residency in upstate New York, Kaplowitz, who is interested in the aesthetic resonance between photography and abstract or non-objective painting, explored a nearby cemetery for the physical and spiritual inspiration it offered. He wrapped funerary plants he found there with treated mesh and muslin swaths and, after allowing the fabric to dry, stretched the textiles over frames or small wood supports.