Los Ojos is pleased to announce Refraction Index, our first photography show with work by Sophie Barbasch, Mark Dorf, Chris Mottalini and John Murphy.
The works included in Refraction Index share an attention to color and composition while presenting subtly paradoxical subject matter. The visual simplicity of the participants’ photographs are often at odds with the complex nuances of the Anthropocene influence in the natural and psychological landscape.
Sophie Barbasch’s photographs employ almost obsessively tight composition to create ambiguously emotional scenes. The simplicity of subject (crystallized cobwebs of a broken windshield, a sweater floating in open water) are at odds with the complex poignancy of what is—or isn’t—being depicted. Barbasch has an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and is based in Manhattan.
Mark Dorf juxtaposes virtual artifacts of the electronic era against photographs of the natural landscape. His photographs are concerned with the visual language of digital culture and our dependence on technology when interacting with our surroundings. Dorf received his BFA from The Savannah College of Art and Design and lives and works in Brooklyn.
Chris Mottalini’s photographs of street lamps in rural Thailand are at once foreign and familiar. Seemingly ordinary utility poles silhouette dusky skies but are interrupted by the unintentionally sculptural lines of fluorescent tubes more commonly found in an office interior. Mottalini studied at the University of Colorado, Boulder and Uppsala University in Sweden. He is based in Brooklyn.
John Murphy uses pinhole photographs to affectionately capture the male form while exploring a fascination with an athletic form of masculinity. Murphy references the “fog of masculinity” that is sublimely captured in soft focus and pastel backgrounds. Murphy studied photography at The University of Georgia and lives and works in Atlanta.