Blue Hour Artist Feature: Galina Kurlat
BLUE HOUR
November 4 – December 21, 2022
Candela Gallery presents Blue Hour, a group exhibition inspired by seasonal depression, featuring photographic works by Granville Carroll, Peter Cochrane, Heather Evans Smith, Dylan Hausthor, Galina Kurlat, Raymond Thompson Jr, and Em White.
GALINA KURLAT
The frosty, crackled, peeling portraits around the space in Blue Hour are the works of Brookyln artist, Galina Kurlat. The archival pigment prints represent a sliver of the object’s deterioration: Kurlat leaves Polaroid film unprocessed for months to years, allowing the portraits take on a life of their own.
Carol, Printed 2019, Archival Pigment Print,
24 x 18 inches, Edition 1 of 10. SHOP >
Jamie, Printed 2019, Archival Pigment Print,
40 x 30 inches, Framed. Edition 1 of 5. SHOP >
Kurlat continues a decades-long study of the photograph beyond simple, momentary documentation or instant gratification. The artist’s painting background has given her a unique connection to photography’s antiquated materiality above its modern conveniences. Soft Body consists of a suite of portraits, which are traditional in initial creation, but exist now in varying states of decomposition. Some subjects can be seen nearly completely, albeit faintly, gazing in other directions, some lock eyes directly with the viewer through amorphous layers of chemistry, and some are merely a collection of decontextualized limbs, barely visible among photographic material.
This series embraces the imperfections inherent to antiquated photographic processes, transforming traditional portrait photography from the representational to the ephemeral.
Chemistry, dust, and the passage of time interact with the image, marking the negative, and degrading the film's information. Much like flesh, the negatives change. Recognizable features fade, gestures disappear, obscuring the subject’s identity. Chemistry serves as a veil, forcing the viewer to look through and to look deeper.
The making of an image is an intimate performance choreographed instantly, although the photograph will continue to evolve. These fragile moments are orchestrated but not confined by the traditional portrait-making process. There is tension and sensuality to the photographs. Darkness enfolds the figure, while light directs the viewer's gaze. They are psychological explorations of intimacy, uncertainty, and chance.
Diana, Printed 2022, Archival Pigment Print, 24 x 18 inches, Edition 1 of 10. SHOP >
Jackie, Printed 2019, Archival Pigment Print, 24 x 18 inches, Edition 1 of 10. SHOP >
Kurlat’s work has been shown in Korea, India, Scotland, France and the US. Recent exhibitions include “Shadow Play”, Peter Halpert Fine Art in NYC, “Process”, Studio Bizio in Edinburgh, “Touch me Touch you”, Jinju International Photo Festival, South Korea, “Self-Processing- Instant Photography”, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA. Her work is collected throughout the US and abroad.
Kurlat has been published in Oxford American, Fraction Magazine, Houston Chronicle, Diffusion IX and Fraction of a Second, Radius Books along with numerous other periodicals and catalogs. She is the cofounder of Main Street Projects, an artist-run organization in Houston which has hosted over 150 local, national and international artists to date. MSP is an artists’ initiative which brings art into urban surroundings.
