<< Back 5/29/02 Photography in a different light By Michael Beadle The blinding light of a sunrise over mountains. A group of musicians in a desolate desert. A keyhole peep into an old French church. A Buddha statue that seems to defy the laws of light. Swans and elves. Temples and churches. Landscapes and skyscraper reflections. Together they form an international photography exhibit now on display through June 16 at the Spring Street Café in downtown Sylva. It’s called “Lost & Found, Places & Faces.” More than two dozen pieces featuring black and whites, colorful portraits, photo illustrations and collaged images showcase the talents of Waynesville photographer and world traveler Kirk Wilson. Having journeyed through the Andes of South America, the cities of the Far East, and the sylvan routes of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Wilson has amassed an enormous collection of photographs documenting a myriad of cultures and settings. Trained as a photojournalist to capture a subject with objectivity and inspired as an artist to create an image with a unique perspective, he works at capturing simple subjects in their sublime light while manipulating other photos to enhance their metaphysical qualities. “Some pictures already say it all,” Wilson explains. “Some images are just raw material to be played with.” So, for example, with “Blinding Glance,” one of the landscape pieces in the show, the viewer gets to see the moment on the Blue Ridge Parkway when a blinding flash of light pierces over a mountain range. Instead of relying on traditional themes of multicolored clouds and dew-dappled trees to depict that postcard picture of sunrise, Wilson chose a bright light that consumes the center of the photograph. It’s as if the viewer needs sunglasses just to view the picture because it brings to focus what can literally be a blinding glance at the sun. A golden statue of the Buddha is the main subject in “A Thai Siesta,” a deceptively simple photo taken in a Thai temple. The Buddha itself may seem like a hundred other Buddha statues except for the fact that there’s a shadow cast behind it forming a line that should cut across the Buddha’s face. It doesn’t. Instead, the Buddha’s head gleams bright where shadow should cover it. Perhaps there’s a spiritual lesson at work. Perhaps it’s an unexplained phenomenon. In any case, there’s an invitation to interpretation. “I’m just documenting what I see,” Wilson says, though he admits it is impossible to keep a truly objective eye as he records the world around him. “We see from our own window.” With “Umeda Elf,” Wilson found the image of a Japanese woman dressed in a traditional robe and beehive hat that was reflected onto a marble wall of a skyscraper in Osaka, Japan. Oversaturating the colors to make oranges and bright yellows, Wilson redefines the image of the woman so she appears to be burned onto a linen-like curtain. Another manipulated image is “Quiet Flight,” which began as a photo of a swan twisting its head back to clean its feathers as it floats on a serene Lake Junaluska. While that image could have been enough for most photographers, Wilson goes one step further by duplicating a mirror image of the swan. The two swans are fused together as a spiral of feathers. Out of the chaotic swirl, the two swan necks form the entwining loops that make an infinity sign. The result is breathtaking. Wilson often turns to sacred icons as subjects and has the power to elevate even the most mundane subjects into sacred status. In “The Body is a Temple,” Wilson started out with a photograph of the inner sanctuary of a French church as seen through a keyhole. The keyhole takes an eerie form, a silhouette of sorts, so it’s as if the viewer gazes through a ghost to look into the empty church. Then, reversing the contrast of black and white, Wilson manipulated the image so that the keyhole forms what looks to be fingers, and even a fingernail magically appears upon closer study. What begins as a study of perspective transforms into an experiment of space and form. “Through his body,” Wilson says of the silhouette keyhole, “is a glimpse of something spiritual.” These photographs engage and invite. Each one has its own story, real or imagined. One photo, for example, shows a dark stairway leading up to a wall where a framed portrait of a clown hangs. Alone on the wall as Wilson was left alone in a 400-year-old house, this picture within a picture still haunts him. Some photos take time to process after they are developed from negatives, Wilson explains. In much the same way writers wrestle with rough drafts to get to a more polished manuscript, the photographer may go through a series of photographs to capture just the right emotional quality and technical design in a composition. There is a timelessness to these photos which were taken in such vastly different places as the remote mountains of Bolivia, the streets of Taiwan and the forests of Western North Carolina. In some cases, the photo appears to be more of an apparition than a place to be guessed. For “Angel Fireworks,” Wilson took a photo of a French church’s fresco of an angel, superimposed eyes from the angel in the fresco and Christmas luminaries from Dillsboro (blurred by a zooming technique), then created a mirror image of the piece so it forms two perfectly symmetrical halves. The result is a dazzling series of arcs rippling from the center, a bright blurry fresco that might resemble a throned god. Surrounding the center are dozens of pinholes with smoky light piercing through. Nothing short of an amazing dream. The exhibit could also be called “Lost Places and Faces Found” in the sense that what the photographer uncovers with a patient lens is both the familiar and the obscure, the hidden and the obvious, the undiscovered and the readily accessible. With these photos, Wilson reminds us to seek out such treasures as they dare us to find them. All the pieces in the “Lost & Found, Places & Faces” exhibit are for sale. The exhibit is up through June 16. For more information about this exhibit or for artists who wish to showcase their work at the Spring Street Café gallery, call 828.586.1800. Artists who are invited to exhibit their work at the café are responsible for putting up and taking down their show, publicizing their exhibit, and providing a menu cover photo which is used for the menus at the café. There is no commission on the exhibited artwork, so if a piece sells, the artist gets the full profit. Exhibits are usually granted a one-month display. The café is located at 3 East Jackson Street in downtown Sylva.