Edition Announcement #236 - Lacey Terrell

offSET #29, New York by Lacey Terrell
8"x10" ($20) | 11"x14" ($50) | 16"x20" ($200)

Good day collectors! It's Sara with a brand-new-to-20x200 artist to introduce, Los Angeles-based photographer, Lacey Terrell. It's a good week for photographers in L.A.— Photo LA kicks off tomorrow. We're all wishing we were out there for some sun and photo goodness but will alas have to live vicariously through the exploits of photo-bloggers. Lacey came to JBP by way of Hey, Hot Shot! and twice garnered honorable mentions for her work in offSET. offSET #29, New York is one of my favorite photographs from the series.

Working as a still photographer on motion picture sets, Lacey turns her camera away from the action to more elusive, subtly suggestive details. She describes her process: "I am intrigued by where the artifice and illusion of movie making intermingle with the 'real.' Hunting for images that occupy this space, I slip behind the metaphoric curtain of center stage." In doing so, she opens the door for infinite alternate narratives, somehow providing freedom to go beyond even the dotted parameters she has given within carefully cropped frames.

When talking about the photograph with Jen, she described a personal relationship to the image, recalling family slideshows. Like the soon-to-be-archaic slide projector her family still has, she imagined Lacey's subject radiating as much heat as light, humming and clicking through pictures and infusing the air with the smell of burning dust. Our conversation turned a little sad as we wondered about the digital equivalent of this kind of nostalgia. Future generations won't (really, already don't) have this sort of visceral experience with media. In our present and future digital age, what kinds of physical experiences will remain?

In spite of the very sleek and modern projector and the title (New York!), my own reaction to the work skewed less personal and even farther back in time, to old Hollywood — when smoking cigarettes was glamorous and stars were unmarred by tales of addictions and adultery. Slivers of this ideal return to life every time I see a movie, cozily tucked into a seat of the same red velvet that stretches behind Lacey's projector. The theater seats themselves impart the musty, burning-dust scent that Jen conjured and a duller but still palpable warmth.

By turning her camera away from the most likely action-packed scene lit by the cyan glow of the projector, Lacey has permanently distilled that moment before a movie begins, when the lights start to dim, the music rises and conversations lull in anticipation of grand stories about to unfold. Light rains glinty particles over rows of dark heads and I feel myself holding my breath for one second, waiting for the magic to happen.

More work from California artists: