Blue Hour Artist Feature: Raymond Thompson Jr
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.
RAYMOND THOMPSON JR
Playing in the Dark #11. Archival Pigment Print from Original Lumen Print,
20 x 16 inches, Framed. Edition 1 of 6. $1250. SHOP >
The obscured portrait works of Raymond Thompson Jr create small bursts of color which invite the viewer into the corners of Blue Hour. In his series, Playing in the Dark, Thompson creates shrouded imagery of his body using the lumen process to reference photography's relationship to distorted racial systems in America.
The artist's dreamy self portraiture is intimate yet removed; the viewer is rewarded for time spent exploring the compositions and deciphering the subject within layers of vibrant chemistry.
Playing in the Dark #6. Archival Pigment Print from Original Lumen Print,
16 x 20 inches, Framed. Edition 1 of 6. $1250. SHOP >
The series asks the viewer to look deeper, by purposely deemphasizing my body with various levels of dark tones and colors. My body is not easily consumed in this work. I used the lumen printing process, because the way images are rendered on the surface of the prints creates a shroud that forces the viewer to investigate at close range. The series consists of silver gelatin prints that have been split toned with selenium.
Playing in the Dark #10. Archival Pigment Print
from Original Lumen Print, 20 x 16 inches, Framed.
Edition 1 of 6. $1250. SHOP >
Playing in the Dark #7. Archival Pigment Print
from Original Lumen Print, 20 x 16 inches, Framed.
Edition 1 of 6. $1250. SHOP >
© Sherry Turner DeCarava and the DeCarava Estate.
I was inspired by African American photographer Roy DeCarava’s printing technique, which focused on underexposure, soft papers and an incredible range of dark and gray tones. DeCarava was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to complete his book, “The Sweet Flypaper of Life.” In this work he focuses on everyday black life in Harlem. He purposely avoided the imagery that was typically published of blacks that focused on the extremes.
In Teju Cole’s essay, “A True Picture of Black Skin,” published in the book Black Futures, he argues that DeCarava’s darkroom printing palette reverses the power structures associated with the white gaze in photography. “The viewer’s eye might at first protest, seeking more conventional contrasts, wanting more obvious lighting. But, gradually, there comes an acceptance of the photograph and its subtle implications: that there’s more there than we might think at first place, but also that when we are looking at others, we might come to the understanding that they don’t have to give themselves up to us. They are allowed to stay in the shadows if they wish,” Cole writes. Cole connects DeCarava’s work to philosopher Edouard Glissant’s thinking that surrounds the word “opacity.” In his writing, he claimed a space for the rights of minorities not to be defined by others’ definitions and the right to be misunderstood if they wanted. “Glissant sought to defend the opacity, obscurity, and inscrutability of Caribbean Blacks and other marginalized peoples. External pressures insisted on everything being illuminated, simplified, and explained. Glissant’s response: No.”
Playing in the Dark #8. Archival Pigment Print from Original Lumen Print,
16 x 20 inches, Framed. Edition 1 of 6. $1250. SHOP >
Raymond Thompson Jr is an artist, educator, and visual journalist based in Austin, Texas. He currently works as an Assistant Professor of Photojournalism at University of Texas at Austin. He received his MFA in Photography from West Virginia University, MA in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and BA in American Studies from the University of Mary Washington. Thompson has worked as a freelance photographer for The New York Times, The Intercept, NBC News, NPR, Politico, Propublica, The Nature Conservancy, ACLU, WBEZ, Google, Merrell and the Associated Press.
