Nicole Belle shows at Found Gallery
LOS ANGELES — Found Gallery will showcase L.A.-based photographer Nicole Belle. Armed with modern photographic technology, Belle manipulates 60s-era negatives to create her own interpretation of a single moment or figure from the past. Her work seeks the establishment of a true image by forced and even radically stylized orchestration, in the same way that cultural mythology creates situations truer or more applicable to life than fact. Opening Reception: Saturday, April 5th, 2008 (6 – 9 PM) Installation runs March April 5th – May 5th, 2008.
For the Rev Sanchez series, Belle used negatives found in a Los Angeles-area thrift store, depicting young women and men modeling poolside, or in a park, reportedly from the personal archive of a semi-professional photographer. She then combined individual frames of the photo shoots to create a doubling, tripling, or quadrupling of the figures. Not only does this expand the field of the negative beyond the spatial boundaries of its original composition, but also beyond the temporal boundaries of its original moment. It is no longer a single instance, but rather, a span. Even better, she feels the young subjects are “transformed, from passive objects of the photographer’s gaze to a collective force unto themselves.” They stand on their own, as archetypal personas and mythological beasts of the late 20th century.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Nicole Belle is a graduate student at The University of California at Riverside, studying photography. She will present her thesis this spring. Her work has previously shown at New Wight Gallery at UCLA, the Riverside Art Museum, and the Brand Gallery in Glendale.
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