 As this month's "Featured Artist" at 510 Warren Street Gallery, I knew I would have a great opportunity to show off my latest work from my new series, "Sharpening the Edges," with perhaps just a bit of room for some older images. As it turned out the show looked terrific and has been getting loads of positive comments. I have the window of the gallery and I managed to fit three images that are visible from the street. As a pedestrian you can really get a good feel for my show just walking by on the sidewalk. But you can't see it all, which I think is actually a good thing. There are still some surprises for the viewer once they come into the gallery.
The biggest surprise both to the gallery and to the visitor is that for the first time there is a video inside the gallery. I had to bring my own TV and four headphones to the gallery and set them up for visitors to be able to hear my musical soundtrack and to watch my video, "Journey to Abstraction." I think it was well worth it. It was a big leap for the gallery, they had never hosted a video before. And it's a natural conversation starter for visitors who are wondering about just how my images come about. The entire town of Hudson seems to have been involved in the Hudson Winter Walk which was at the same time as the opening this past Saturday. Despite the dreary weather, rain, sleet and cold, the street and soon the gallery was filled with people walking through, talking and taking in the show. I had a chance to speak with quite a few visitors and got very positive responses to my work. My primary goals are to get viewers to pause, look and wonder and engage with my images. That seemed to be the case on Saturday. People were curious and spent a good bit of time looking at the various images, and finding things in them. It seems that because these are photographs, it is peoples' natural inclination to believe that they must show real things. Since this is exactly my point, that photography need not show real things, it is fascinating to watch as viewers look for a reality they are familiar with. Several viewers felt that the images shared similar qualities with modern day science fiction movies. Since this is the everyday person's most frequent contact with photography that does not accurately portray reality, this seems a natural response and I took it as a compliment. The evening and the opening ended with fireworks, literally, the finale for the Winter Walk is a fireworks display that can be seen from Warren Street. Because the entire street was closed for the event, there were crowds standing in the middle of the roadway in the cold rain watching as in the distance the rockets' red glare disappeared from time to time in the low clouds that shrouded the stars and signaled the end of a very exciting evening. The show at the 510 Warren Street Gallery will be on display until Dec. 28th 2014. More info at: www.510warrenstgallery.com
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Jonathan Pazer
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