Some of the most successful works of art use one of our senses to stimulate the others. It’s not just that a deep connection with art gives you goosebumps – it’s that almost indefinable quality of a work that makes the viewer want to taste a sculpture, smell a live performance, or run their eyes over the texture of a painting.
Photographers Eli Craven and Dongwook Lee question what images can be with Touch And For what reasontheir respective exhibitions in the Blue Sky Gallery, the largest exhibition halls of the Oregon Center for Photographic Arts. Through the end of August, visitors to Blue Sky can see how each photographer uses black-and-white images of bodies to alienate the familiar, with contrasting and occasionally complementary effects. Craven makes TouchImages of Lee in modified sculptures, and while Lee’s images are traditionally sized, his use of water in For what reason transforms the body into anonymous forms of classically posed, alien beauty and unshakable fear.
Visitors are shown Touch first, and find For what reason at the back of Blue Sky’s lobby, where you can also visit a members’ gallery space. Touch uses materials such as wood panels and soft pink matte surfaces to largely obscure the human subject of a photograph, but also creates a sense of mystery with cut-out peepholes through which the image peeks out from behind. When the holes align with the subject’s eye, as is the case with pieces such as Lateral eye or the sympathy Duo set, it is as if Craven had cut an interdimensional rift that connects the people in the picture and the viewer across time and space. The art can stare back – or, when Craven covers the eyes, as happens when one man’s eye is obscured by a cutout on another in the print Committed (Flex)their ambiguity feeds the mystery.
Likewise, gold-colored mirror plates on pieces such as Mouth to mouth And Venous flow create prismatic Rorschach inkblots from their fixed vantage points, which require active participation from the viewer to see them. When you observe their reactions to the Touching hands Series of high-resolution hand photographs printed on towels, then some of the most striking pieces in Touch the eye windows are installed Tears in the eyes #1 And Obligated (Repair). The way the fingers line up with the respective pink and brown blocks makes the image seem as if it is in the process of isolating itself from the audience.
While the grayscale in Touch feels like reused mid-century collage photos, Lee’s For what reason– the German “wofür”, which is closer to finding meaning than the broader Why– clearly originate from this millennium, but use Renaissance body language in their death parables. For what reason spans more than a decade of haunting photographs, initially inspired by Lee’s reflection in the water. Lee ponders the duality of water as a calm yet undeniably violent force: human qualities that will never humanize the element.
For what reasonThe human bodies are in conflict with bodies of water. Most of the show resembles a fever dream about naked bodybuilders from yesteryear like Mickey Hargitay fighting a cinematic battle against a ripped da Vinci Jesus and his muscular disciples. Feel free to insert your own touch points, as faces are never shown. Water is rarely depicted directly, instead representing the distortions in melting bodies. Water appears most watery in Why 19as a large spherical drop reflecting or containing the bulk of two men. Why 20 shows two men with muscular backs and buttocks approaching a third man on all fours, but the way Lee positions his subjects makes the shot seem less like a Tom of Finland fantasy and more like a John Carpenter one.
Music fans might think that For what reason resembles the cover that Jamie Nelson shot for Megan Thee Stallion’s 2022 album TraumazinWhile Nelson’s portraits convey a similarly chaotic emotional wavelength, this series is clearly a long exposure. Lee looks as if he has taken his camera into his nightmares to For what reason without an Adobe subscription. Some of his shots are immediately claustrophobic, like the man melted into rubble in Why 09or the sea of hands reaching towards the camera in Why 16. Is it a mosh pit, is it the generational sea of all who loved you, or is it a still image from Drag me to hell? Why 03 And Why 11 look like highly artistic interpretations of the Corpse Tree from Zack Snyder’s 300and Gerard Butler’s stunning slow-motion choreography throughout the film.
The shows are not technically perfect. Touch shows some wavy areas due to uneven application, while some of the For what reason The prints appear to have been improperly calibrated, resulting in visible pixelation upon close inspection. But these minor flaws are no real distraction from the corners of your mind that Craven and Lee can take you to. Touch And For what reason are imaginative and somewhat disturbing, in the best sense.
WATCH IT: Touch And For what reason at the Blue Sky Gallery, Oregon Center for Photographic Arts, 122 NW 8th Ave., 503-225-0210, blueskygallery.org. Wednesday–Saturday 12pm–5pm. Admission free.
