I have found photographer Laura Letinsky and her still lifes through Pinterest, and the curious thing is that you will find most of her table-top photography credited there.
Her works resembles the after of a meal with food leftovers, crumbs, spilled wine, peeled but forgotten fruit exploring the relation of ripeness and decay. To me they express beauty with a glow of melancholia. What is your feeling?
Untitled #64 from the series Hardly More Than Ever
Untitled #72 from the series I Did Not Remember I Had Forgotten
Untitled #54 from the series Hardly More Than Ever
Untitled #80 from the series Hardly More Than Ever
Untitled #1 from the series The Dog and The Wolf series
Untitled #49 from the series Hardly More Than Ever
I’ll pick a paragraph from a very interesting interview on Aperture where Laura explains how she creates these still lifes:
I have two or three tables in the studio laden with piles of objects and images. Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, groupings emerge. Once I’ve found a way to begin an arrangement, I often have to wait for the light to be right, or I have to pull parts out and rearrange until the picture reaches the level of precariousness that feels right. I wanted to be a painter when I first began making art, and now I work in a manner similar to how I imagine painters work in their studios.
She lives and works in Chicago, USA and her works have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Netherlands Foto Institute; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others.
4 Responses
Interesting work. I like the juxtaposition between ripeness vs. decay.
Laura’s work has a sensitivity about it that makes the decay look rather timid. For me, the difference between ripeness and decay would need to be more definite, more raw, more crude… but that’s just me.
Thank you for sharing.
I believe it’s the kind of decay with most beauty I have seen in a time. I like your observation here, Tina! x
Hi Lena, I know when posting this kind of work, it is a very personal approach and does not please everybody since it is not ‘easy’ but at the end that is what our blogs are about, right? A very happy weekend to you!
Great find, Gudy – what a nice change from all that perfection we usually see. I like the melancholic atmosphere in her images, and that there’s so much to explore.