Dillon DeWaters 'Prominent American Ghosts' in Long Island City

Last night was the opening for the solo show of Dillon Dewaters' Prominent American Ghosts, at the ICP-Bard studio buildings in Long Island City, NY. The brief duration of this show (a mere four days) was a good enticement to get a healthy crowd of people to the opening, and the work reflected an ethereal, timeless quality. Opening the show were two vibrantly hued reddish-magenta photographs; upon close examination it became apparent they were images of oceans that had been doused in a fiery field of color. In one room was an installation video piece with several TV monitors; the 20+ minute work held a Lynchian oddness but also a very specific way of seeing, blips and blurps of fire, static, and other ghostly apparitions. Also in this room was the Rauschenbergian piece which from afar respresented beautiful color bars; upon closer inspection, they were composed of hundreds of tiny images---from pop culture, from life---carefully compressed into these stripes of gray, yellow, aqua, green, magenta, cyan, white, dark gray, and cerulean. This piece was fascinating and immaculately put together, referencing TV color bars, the photographic color wheel, a painterly sensibility, and the inundation of images we are constantly barraged with. The last room of the show contained several elegant black and white pieces reminiscent of black windows; in these windows were seeming rayographs of darkroom objects, an elegant commentary on the history of photography and a love for the darkroom. While this show will not be up for long, Dewaters will have a piece at the International Center of Photography; stay tuned!

















© 2010 Dillon Dewaters, from Ocean Ocean