The photographs of Fran Vita-Taylor are hanging in the Area Gallery at the Woodbury Campus Center. You will notice the colors first. They are lucid concentrations that glow within the print. Vita-Taylor says that she sometimes spends a couple of days in Photoshop, adjusting the hue and saturation of each piece of color. The results are luminous shades that are sometimes disruptive when considered within the context of the photograph. In a print titled, “Going to Vote.” an elderly woman stands at a home’s front gate, smiling towards the camera. This seems ordinary until you feel the light from the pink squares of her plaid coat bouncing off your retinas. Vita-Taylor uses lucid contrast to create tension. In a print titled “Telematin,” a television sparkles in a murky hotel room. Look closely at the television set, there is a comatose talking head that looks like it is about to start drooling from the screen.
The colors in these prints are what supply them with such vibrancy. The lines and shapes in the compositions become boundaries and platforms for the color. The subject matter is often commonplace; parking lots, abandoned buildings and closed swimming pools.
These photos were made while Vita-Taylor was on the road in France and the United States and several photos were made from the inside of hotel rooms. Two prints are devoted to crumpled beds in dim rooms with feet or body parts timidly invading the frame. The shades in these rooms are closed which mutes the sun and gives the impression of sickness and lassitude. The light is mostly indirect reflections. Digital enhancements are used to light the composition. The entire selection of prints shows a disinclination towards exertion, the only print depicting action is of some confused looking spectators at a parade. There is a pair of prints that capture the curl of banisters against vibrant wallpaper.
The print quality on these digital prints is excellent. Vita-Taylor uses instamatic-type digital cameras and prints on Matte paper using an Epson Stylus 2200. Vita-Taylor intends the photos to “evoke the beauty and oddness of everyday life.” They do. A photo called “Tall Evergreens-Placentia CA” shows thick green trees rising like wild judgmental eyebrows over a hot suburban neighborhood street.
The show hangs until Oct. 15 with a reception on Oct. 1 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m..
Tim Hofmann can be contacted at [email protected]