Lauren Semivan: Door Into The Dark

David Klein Gallery, 1520 Washington Boulevard, Detroit, Michigan, is pleased to announce the opening of Door Into the Dark a solo exhibition by Lauren Semivan. The exhibition features new photographs from her ongoing Pitch series. A reception for the artist will take place on Saturday, February 3, 6 - 8 pm.

 "I consider photography to be both a tool for escape, and an instrument for self-knowledge:

a door into the dark"… - Lauren Semivan 2018

Working with an early 20th Century large format, tripod-mounted, camera to capture her images, Semivan develops the resulting black and white prints in the darkroom and then scans them without manipulation. This allows her to digitally produce her illusionist photographs on a large scale. Creating a "stage set" in her studio, the artist assembles a variety of materials, such as string, ribbon, wire, fabric and torn paper to build a narative, often adding sweeping brushstrokes of paint and the presence of a figure, which is usually somewhat obscured.

Semivan describes her process here: "The elaborate, illusionistic constructions I compose in front of the camera last only until they are photographed, after which they are either discarded or re-incorporated into the next image. The result is a series of images that are both tangible documents of reality and impressions from another unseen realm. Each image evolves over a period of days to weeks of drawing, assembling, looking through the lens, shooting, reconstructing, and shooting again."

Door Into the Dark features recent work including four new images which have not been exhibited previously. The new pieces include Gift, 2017, 1/5, 50 x 40 inches, an abstract composition in white, black and grey tones, and Untitled (Landscape), 1/0, 2017, 30 x 24 inches, featuring a snowy landscape in a battered antique frame. Untitled (November), 2017, 1/10, 30 x 24 inches and Tide, 2016, 1/10, 30 x 24 inches are also new additions to the Pitch series.

Lauren Semivan has received numerous awards for her work including the Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50, and The Griffin Museum of Photography's Griffin Award. In 2014, she was a finalist for The John Gutmann Photography Fellowship, and SF Camerawork's Baum Award for Emerging Photographers. Her work was recently published in Black Forest: Four Visual Poems (Candela Books, 2014) and has appeared in The New Yorker, Artforum, Harper's Magazine, Interview Magazine, The Village Voice, and Photograph magazine. Semivan's work is in numerous private and public collections including the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, and The Elton John Photography Collection.

A native of Detroit, Semivan did her undergraduate work at Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, and holds an MFA in photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. This is her third solo show at David Klein Gallery. Lauren lives and works in Detroit.

For further information please contact:
Christine Schefman, Director of Contemporary Art
christine@dkgallery.com
David Klein Gallery
1520 Washington Boulevard
Detroit, MI 48226
(313) 818-3416
www.dkgallery.com

For Press inquiries, please contact:
Amani Olu
Olu & Company
(646) 330-1039
amani@olucompany.com