Contemporary Art in the Louisville Area: The South West Once Known

I viewed the exhibit That Much Further West: Three Visions from New Mexico located in the Paul Paletti Gallery. This was the first time I had been to the Paul Paletti Gallery and the first exhibit I had visited on my own. It’s located on Market Street in Louisville, which is fitting for the exhibition because the area is cultured. Aside from the images I viewed, the trip was an experience in itself. Considering the area, I was in when I arrived at the location, I had not expected the gallery to be inside of an attorney’s office. However, when I entered through the doors, it projected the feeling of a gallery with images lined on every wall and spotlights demanding my eyes to focus on the images.

With what little previous knowledge I had, I was not sure of what type of media I would be viewing. From the name, I was at least able to come to the conclusion the exhibit would make reference or include a perspective of New Mexico or parts of the South West. What I did not realize was that the three visions actually referred to the three artists who took the images that made up the exhibit. The photographers were Kirk Gittings, Jan Pietrzak, and Philip V. Augustin. The images that were the most compelling for me were those of Kirk Gittings. I think I was originally drawn to his because of their large scale. In comparison to the others, these images were so large it was easy to see what was photographed, whereas with the other images it was not clear what you were looking at from a distance because they were so small. These images in my eyes were great successes because of the extreme contrast of blacks and whites with an adequate amount of gray tones.

In Kirk’s Gitting series there were six photos; Walking Rain, Excavation, Ghost Dancer, Cadillac Ranch, The Portal, and On Reflection (image 2). Of the six photographs, the ones that grabbed my attention the most were: The Portal and On Reflection. The Portal (image 3) was an image of what I believed to be the desert at first glance, but the longer I looked at the image, the more it almost appeared to me as an ocean. It has peaks that flow like a wave in combination with the highlights at the tip and a stark contrast right below it, with a flow of mid-tones between each peak. This creates a flowing movement of the surface. I was first drawn in by the sky, which holds the whitest tone in the image in the top left third. Forming almost a circle around the white, are clouds that go towards the center and hold a variety of darker gray mid-tones. This combination reminds me of a portal that appears to be closing up. The light from the opening is shining down onto the desert, where the light then flows out onto the peaks towards the viewer and draws you back into the portal, creating a circular eye movement. What I take from this image is that the South West was once thriving, but now it’s time is almost up, hence the name chose The Portal.

On Reflection (image 4) is a photograph of an abandoned old rusted car from the first half of the twentieth century, located in an open field with a sky that gives an appearance that a storm is moving in. The car is located in the bottom right corner and only part of the car shown. It is the back third, with two windows and a part of the top of the wheel. This corner holds the darkest tones throughout the image, including some stark blacks within the car and under the wheel rim. A nice contrast is created with a highlight just above these tones. When looking at this image my eyes start at the top right above the car, with the sun just peeking through the clouds. Then they move to the mid-left with an opening of the clouds that holds mid-tones, then immediately dart down to the car where my eyes rest the longest, and eventually go back up above where the sun is peeking through. It creates a triangular flow. The field itself seems almost separate from the rest of the image holding a strong contrast on its own due to the texture and variation of highlights and lowlights the plants create. When I am not focusing on the detail of the image, you could fold the image in half vertically and the left is much lighter than the right. It creates a depth because the foreground is darker and the background is lighter. Which allows me to make the inference that he chose the name On Reflection because it creates this idea of looking back. As well as having only the back of the car reminds me of when watching a movie where a family is moving and a child is gazing out of the back of the car window reflecting on what they once knew.

Overall, I thought this exhibit was successful because each artist showed their own interpretation of how they viewed New Mexico/far South West. They could do so effectively because they have lived in the area for many years now, and are also experienced, photographers. This information was given on their short biographies that were included in the exhibit description (Image 1). I think Kirk Gitting created this idea that the South West was at one point thriving but hardly exists now. It wasn’t like it was once, it’s almost been abandoned and we are witnessing the remains of what was once the present and now falls victim to the past as just a part of history.