Skip to main content

Ms Behavior and Then Some: McCoy Gallery Exhibition 2015







composite photograph by Bill Paarlberg

Ms. Behavior and Then Some
McCoy Gallery


A photograph is an image, a record and a recognition.  As an image the photograph presents the proposition of being worth our visual attention, perhaps because it is simply visually appealing – seeing registers pleasure—perhaps it is a curious sight. As a record it displaces time and holds a singular and past moment.  The reality of that moment may or may not have been actual, but the photograph suggests a real something that recalls a convergence of light, color and form. The convergence may be seen as a circumstance. The photographic function of recognition is more specifically an opportunity for recognition, since recognition requires a viewer, a witness.

Nancy Grace Horton’s photographs are deftly emphatic about these features to the point of stretching the image and its location in time to a circumstance that signals a real, albeit odd, present. The women in Horton’s pictures inhabit their spaces according to and against the structures that contain them.

Horton’s women invite or recognition of their circumstances and suggest that such recognition includes our own presence somewhere within the frame. The images in Ms. Behavior and the images in Mad Women each intend possible narratives and as such they place their subjects among us as we invent stories based on the photographic evidence.  Our lives touch.

A convergence of circumstances is implied. As viewers we may not recognize these particular women, but we are awakened to something familiar about them, something in the way they respond to objects, to water, to the read hot coil on the stove, daring to or compelled to tread to close. How odd for these persons to behave as they do in the world…how odd is the world itself, an environment so fluid that it requires more than imagination to be part of it.

A photograph needs a place of performance, where things meet in time. Where adjustments are made, where strategies for seeing and for being come together.  Where something nearly happens.

Artist and Cutator, David Raymond









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dress Codes at UNE October 1, 2019 - January 6, 2020

Elizabeth DeWolfe adds the Dress Codes exhibition to her syllabus for her Women's Studies course, inviting me to share my artistic practice and present an in-depth presentation about my project Mr.Mrs.  She also included readings on dress to expand the conversation. Students and Dr. DeWolfe shown participating in paper doll making. At the opening, visitor view the video featuring a collage of images from behind the scenes highlighting all the people that I have met and photographed for this project. And video interviews of UNE students. BIDDEFORD, Maine -- The University of New England’s Biddeford Campus Ketchum Library Art Gallery is currently hosting an exhibition, titled   Dress Codes , which will be on display through January 6, 2020. The exhibition is free and open to the public. DRESS CODES:   an exhibition and collaboration  with artist Nancy Grace Horton in the  Ketchum Library Art Gallery October 1- January 6.  Pleas...
Post a Comment
Read more

Being Group 1

I hope you can take a minute to enjoy this memory we had together, and just a funny video on it's own. Got to love those lazy susans! I remember that evening to be quite a special one and hope we can repeat it each semester. Those of you who did not make it, we missed you and by the size of this table you can see we had plenty of room and food to share!! The idea came to me to do an art swap when we return in June. I will send out a reminder, if you are interested bring a small piece of art, 8x10 or under, place it in a sealed envelope, then we will do a blind draw. It will not take long and it will be a nice way to start a collection. (hit play even though it is black!!)
1 comment
Read more

The Cult of True Womanhood- REVISED

The Cult of Domesticity or Cult of True Womanhood (named such by its detractors) was a prevailing view among upper and middle class women during the nineteenth century, in Great Britain and the United States. According to the ideals of the cult of domesticity, women were supposed to embody perfect virtue in all senses. Women were put in the center of the domestic sphere and were expected to fulfill the roles of a calm and nurturing mother, a loving a faithful wife, and a passive, delicate, and virtuous creature. These women were also expected to be pious and religious, teaching those around them by their Christian beliefs, and expected to unfailingly inspire and support their husbands. They were held to four cardinal virtues: 1. Piety - believed to be more religious and spiritual than men 2. Purity - pure in heart, mind, and body 3. Submission - held in "perpetual childood" where men dictated all actions and decisions 4. Domesticity- a division between work...
Post a Comment
Read more