CCNY | Brea Souders | Mountains Without Faces | A CCNY Darkroom Residency solo exhibition

Mountains Without Faces, a solo exhibition by 2013 CCNY Darkroom Resident Brea Souders, explores the nature of memory by re-contextualizing and combining different photographic materials. This exhibition marks the third of four solo exhibitions from the recipients of the 2013 CCNY Darkroom Residency Program.

Brea Souders says about Mountains Without Faces:

The images in Mountains Without Faces are made by layering and shaping cut negatives and positives from my film archive over simple white ground. As the formation of overlapping slices grows, the clarity of images within the negatives becomes obscured. The layering of colors darkens as it builds. Light bouncing off the darkest surfaces provides some highlight and dimension, but rarely reveals a discernible image. With these elements in place, I ply the amorphous pile, coaxing it into various abstract shapes. With each pass new pieces are revealed, while others become buried.

This work is joined by the related project, Single Cuts. While its own series, the cuts also represent a portion of the building material of Mountains Without Faces. They provide a closer look at the imagery contained within the transparencies, without the obscuring company of one another. But their irregular shapes alter the original intent of their source photographs. They are partial views torn from fully realized images. Stories half told, or less.

Brea Souders is an artist based in New York City. She has held solo exhibitions at Daniel Cooney Fine Art and Abrons Arts Center in NYC, and has participated in group exhibitions at the Hyères International Festival of Photography and Fashion, France, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, New York and M+B Gallery, Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in The New Yorker, Photograph, L’Officiel Art and New York Magazine. Her website is breasouders.com.

The CCNY Darkroom Residency Program offers local photographers much-needed workspace in New York City as well as access to the CCNY community and programs. Each year, emerging photographers living in New York City are invited to apply for this program. The four recipients of the 2013 CCNY Darkroom Residency Program – Pierre Le Hors, Pixy Yijun Liao, Francesco Palombi, and Brea Souders – are the second group of residents to have solo exhibitions, thanks to the generous support of The Jerome Foundation. For more information about the CCNY Darkroom Residency Program, please visit our website.

Gallery hours: Monday – Saturday 12 - 6 pm

The CCNY Darkroom Residency Program is made possible by generous support from Fujifilm; Kodak; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; Foundation for Contemporary Arts; and The Jerome Foundation.

CCNY is celebrating over 125 years serving the photographic and art community through this and upcoming exhibitions, lectures, and special events. For more information, contact John Stanley at info@cameraclubny.org or by phone at 212–260–9927.