The SCALO/GUYE fine art photography gallery held its opening show for native Los Angeles artist Daniele Albright last Saturday evening. With the show’s title, FICTIONAL SPACES, one might have expected pictures of Hollywood sets, actors in character or once filmed locations. Instead, the viewer came across laterally collaged photo sets of natural scenes at sea, the sky and where land meets the two. Upon an immediate look, there is nothing fictional about them. “They’re trying to trick you,” says Daniele. “What appears to be an island is not an island,” “waves” are cleverly patterned shots and so on. The “trick” about the collages is that they are not a series of sweeping shots that were simply pieced together but instead different individual photos that were taken at separate times. Raising questions about how our minds make sense of space, visual patterns and reality is the challenge set forth by Daniele Albright and with this being her first fine art photography show, one hopes for more work to come.
Part of the fun in Albright’s works is in trying to pinpoint a placial referent. When looking at the ground is invisible, or virtually so (14”x 104”, c-prints mounted on aluminum and wood panels behind plexiglass), one guesses where the half submerged, floating point of view comes from. With five successive shots leading in essay form, the first one being an all ocean intro while the other four strangely rise and finish an island’s narrative, one is taken on an isolating journey that raises more questions than answers. With the final shot being the land’s last tapering with water sticking to the lens that then refracts unidentifiable objects into a mysterious nonsense, the viewer becomes lost. Is this Kauai, Tahiti or New Guinea? Catalina, maybe? “It’s Big Sur,” answers Miss Albright.
Going north is part of Daniele’s own story. In between the sound of a breath and a crackle (24”x 104”, c-prints mounted on aluminum and wood panels behind plexiglass) waves crash at the last breath of L.A. at the biker and surfer hangout, County Line. Going way past this point, Daniele has traveled up to the U.S/Canada border in order to rediscover an American Pacific frontier. Along the way, she booted through snow within some of the world’s last remaining temperate forests while also heading out to sea in order to visit the distant Orcas and San Juan islands on a journey for Pacific historicity.
“I didn’t expect to meet these cultures” said Daniele, who’s own “habitat is L.A.”. “These people had respect for things organic.” Describing it, Daniele’s eyes become wistful as they recall an area which she must have loved. In disappeared too quickly to leave a precise recollection (21”x 86”, c-prints mounted on aluminum and wood panels behind plexiglass), three shots find a story of bright gray sky enveloping a tiny shred of perfect trees carpeting the top of another phantom island. The first picture offers a tilted introduction but the body of two lateral paragraph pictures don’t offer much body at all. And there is no conclusion. This makes the viewer wish for more and the story here is a quick step towards a mightily beautiful reach that cannot settle. All that’s left is longing.
Making a death for the referent while also creating a new simulacra through obvious cues and hints is a tough intellectual feat, but it’s easy for Albright. Tackling boundaries of perception is apparently easy for someone who has maneuvered through the University of California network via graduate studies at UC Irvine’s Visual Studies and Comparative Literature programs. While Daniele left OC’s ivory tower because of several reasons, her face lights up when she recalls a dissertation she wrote on Lyotard’s desire to bridge academic and artistic practice for widespread audiences. Is she trying to build her own bridge? With a smile she says that “it’s a first step.”
Address: Scalo/Guye
302 North Robertson Boulevard,
West Hollywood, CA 90048
tel: 310-358-9396; fax 310-358-9396
All images courtesy of Scalo/Guye Gallery
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