There is a feeling of precise formality in Holden Gallery at Warren Wilson College. Peter Schlessinger’s digital ink-jet prints are displayed in a carefully thought-out way that belies their creator’s stated method of working.
“I am interested,” he says, “in the way forms feel—it’s an emotional divining rod. I don’t think about it too much.”
However, the installation of the work suggests otherwise: The show took three full days to mount.
“The work,” Schlessinger says, “is … the manifestation of an internal world.” His photo of a sand storm he encountered driving out to the Burning Man Festival in the Black Rock Desert is a surreal landscape, giving out an unearthly light amid the blurry shapes of extra-tall traffic cones. The dashboard in the foreground confirms that the photo was taken through the windshield, away from the discomfort of blowing sand.
In other pieces, water recurs and recurs. Pale light on black water in “Fish” gives the effect of a satin gown. “It’s about what lies beneath the surface,” offers Schlessinger. The water in “No Secrets” is so clear it is barely visible, its presence confirmed only by the glistening pebbles underneath. Two works show holes left in gray mud after a river at flood stage has drained away.
“I never go out to work with preconceived notions about what I’ll shoot,” the artist explains. He points to a monochromatic work with an image that could be exploding fireworks, or perhaps a jellyfish. “I had been walking around the docks for hours and had found nothing interesting to photograph. Then, on my way back to the car, I happened to see this image at the bottom of a wall.”
Another monochromatic work includes an image of a twisted towel lying on gritty asphalt. Yet another shows spilled tar in a shape reminiscent of the Third Reich eagle. There is evidence, in some works, of human presence, but the people just never materialize.
[Connie Bostic is an Asheville-based painter and writer.]
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