Series Preview: "Spaces" by Stephanie Blumenthal

Stephanie Blumenthal turns her lens toward human-made environments in her recent, aptly titled series Spaces. Diverging from the organic themes of her former Vines series, which celebrated the gnarled, ropy undergrowth of the wooded Berkshire Hills, Spaces aims to deconstruct architecture into its most essential forms and the way that these forms are intended to accommodate human experience.

Abstracting each ex- or interior in Photoshop by layering solid colors, sampled from the photograph, over their corresponding depicted planes, Blumenthal compromises the photograph’s texture and apparent depth. Like the geometric abstractionists, her focus now lands on two elementary concepts: color and form. Comprised of a palette that is largely mid-century modern, from warm neutrals to calm, corporate grays, Blumenthal’s photographs reveal the chromatic spectra within which we live and work.

Form, meanwhile, is enforced by the crisp outlining of light and shadow. The natural human reliance on shadow to comprehend form, and the general expectation that a light source will always be located overhead, forms the basis of Blumenthal's work. The human body is the unspoken nucleus of each image, and Blumenthal's camera remains true to traditional experiences of habitat while still incorporating something both fresh and unexpected.

Spaces will be on view on Carrie Haddad Gallery's second floor from September 27 to November 12, 2017. The gallery is located at 622 Warren Street, Hudson, NY and is open from 11 to 5 p.m. every day.