Xiomáro's Street Haunting
The genre of street photography has its roots in the centuries-long tradition of the peripatetic artist searching for inspiration. Since cameras did not exist, Leonardo da Vinci had a little sketchbook dangling from his belt. He would roam the streets of town looking for interesting faces and expressions to inform his work.
Instead of a sketchbook, Virginia Woolf recorded her experiences in Street Haunting, a 1927 essay describing the profound impact of wandering through London. The transient and ordinary scenes of daily life became rich sources of reflection and vicarious imagination about the complexities of human existence.
For Xiomáro, New York City’s gritty hallucinatory swirl of energy and diversity of people is a torrent of wonder and fascination for quickly finding and capturing the compelling moments buried within the mundane – all
while not using Photoshop, filters, or other manipulations. Dramatic, weird, and ghostly moments that smartphone-gazing commuters will miss are frozen for our exploration. Ambiguous and enigmatic scenes, demeanors, body language, and surroundings propel one to resonate with private interpretations.
If Virginia Woolf were alive today and substituted her pen for a camera, she might have taken photographs that look something like the 16 you will see in this exhibition. |