Nudes and Decaying Buildings At KMR

Barbara Vaughn’s current show at KMR Arts embraces the artist’s different but complementary vernaculars: classic black and white representational photography and innovative photographic pigment transfer onto aluminum support. At first glance, the images seems disparate, contrasting, possibly at odds. Gradually, as the viewer takes in the whole, the patterns and colors resolve together into a refreshing sequence of poetic rhythm. The contrast of color and monotone, gritty texture and smooth sinew, focus and abstraction is deliberate and evocative.

Vaughn was born in Philadelphia and studied at Princeton University before returning to her first and primary love, photography, by continuing her education at NYC’s International Center of Photography in the mid-1980s. By the early ‘90s she was a successful professional portrait photographer. In 2012 Vaughn put down portraiture in order to develop and pursue her recent personal, iterative style of abstract fine art photography. 

In the current exhibit, there are the artist’s  two-decade old black and white photos of decaying buildings from Port Clyde, Maine and the Old Port in Portland, Maine that she has overlaid onto closeups of sensuous female forms, as if advent calendar windows have been carved into the man-built structures. These are the images entitled “Mayday.” We, of course, are meant to wonder whether the women in the houses are calling out “Mayday!” The artist certainly intends us to contemplate the meaning of their confinement in the dilapidated buildings; it is an allegory of outmoded and confining social structures. Without being overtly political or tied to specific events, the artist means for us to understand that this psycho-social tension exists, and has existed for ages.

The “Mayday” images are pigment process prints in black and white, and the nudes within are negative analogs that have been embedded digitally. 

There are also the exciting and alluring hue streaked images of water reflections. Larger in scale than the black and white representational works, these pieces exude color and light reflected in close up range to create impressionistic staccato patterns. They are sharp and cool and technical and organic all at the same time. The images are the product of a highly technical process using ultraviolet sensitive pigments transferred onto an aluminum composite substrate. Interestingly, no glazing, nor Plexiglass, is needed because the surface is not delicate; in fact, it calls out to be touched. 

In “Donisi II,” cool blues and grays swirl together in an intoxicating visual pattern that evokes wind and light dancing on the surface of water.

In “Zevra,” we take in a zebra like pattern of steely green, black and cool white zig zagging forms across the surface in a kind of mesmerizing lightning bolt. 

“Mayday” includes 16 images, 11 classic black and white photographs on paper with use of colored accents, and five larger color pigment transfer prints on aluminum composite mount. They range in size from 20 x 16 inches on the one hand, to 36 x 70 inches on the other, and are priced between $2000 for the smallest black and white framed photos to $9500 for the largest abstract color image. 

KMR Arts is at  2 Titus Rd., Washington Depot, Conn. 860-868- 7533. “Mayday” is on view through July 7.