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Tinsquo's curatorial project, Adjacent To Life, presents Strangers and Family by Elizabeth Hatcher Williams.
Marisa Malone contributes the exhibition essay:
The photography of Elizabeth Hatcher Williams captures the choreography of intimacy. Composing a narrative from stills of daily life, her work illuminates the ways in which we mirror, invite, close off, and hold space with others.
The genesis of this project came after reviewing eight years worth of photo negatives that Hatcher Williams had yet to use. Pulling images that were strong and arranging them together, an unconscious theme embedded throughout her work emerged: the exploration of the intangible familiarity that connects us. Over the past year and a half, Hatcher Williams continued to shoot new work documenting the dynamics among close friends, total strangers, and between artist and subject.
Hatcher Williams has a natural sensitivity for composition, lighting, and perspective. Equipped with a small point-and-shoot film camera, she records quickly and generously her environment. “The word I keep using to describe [the work] is ‘incidental,’” she explains, “I’m allowing the scenes to come to me.”
Moments of friendship, solitude, joy, and connection are revealed in her photographs. Some subjects are aware of their participation, others are not, yet in each image there is the sense of a tender observer. “You're constantly interacting with people, you’re responsible for holding that person within your atmosphere whether they know it or not” says Hatcher Williams, “[as an artist] you're responsible for telling some kind of truth about them and responsible for that person's right to intimacy with you.”
- Marisa Malone
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Marisa Malone grew up in the Sierra foothills of Nevada. She studied writing and literature at The Evergreen State College and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her writing has been published in BlazeVox Journal and Selfish Magazine, along with two self-published poetry chapbooks.
Strangers and Family is on view through September 20, 2024 at the Adjacent To Life gallery housed in Ninth Street Espresso (341 E. 10th Street at Ave B, New York City). Artist's reception: Saturday, August 24, 7:00 - 9:00 pm.
Posted by Mark Roth at August 24, 2024 10:46 AM