NYAB Event - Jason Frank Rothenberg "Fossils"

Jason Frank Rothenberg "Fossils"

Werkstatte Gallery

This event has ended.

The photographs in Fossils represent the broad, though not arbitrary, scope of Rothenberg's personal work over the past five years. A New Zealand glacier, a farm near Albany, a flowering tree along the Pacific Coast Highway: intimate and idealized, the dreamy color photos cover a wide range of extraordinary and ordinary locales.

Born and raised in New York City, Rothenberg's resulting romanticized conception of nature is readily apparent in the magical-realism of his images. With the majority of his time spent working in the city as a commercial photographer, Rothenberg has limited travel time, and selectively chooses destinations that might inspire. Often traveling with family and friends, it is necessary for him to travel light and shoot fast. This inherently loose process lends an immediacy to the photos: they look like paintings, and they feel like snapshots.

The beauty in Fossils is often found in nondescript locations. Whether it's an ocean or a tree, the places in the photos can feel at once secret and familiar. These are quiet, non-urban environments, where people and animals inhabit the world in an unobtrusive way. On the surface, there is a conservationist's tone to the work: forests, glaciers, and the words "sea level" literally read as signs of pre-existing and imminent decay. Yet these apocalyptic aspects are tempered by the artist's optimism and approach: there's nothing pre-conceived here, and any theoretical conceits are secondary to Rothenberg's aesthetic ones. The photographs recreate for the viewer the simple awe of seeing something beautiful for the first time.