VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Inman Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of work by Demetrius Oliver entitled Albedo. Opening with a reception on Friday, March 12th from 6:00 – 8:00 pm, the exhibition will continue through May 1, 2010. This is Oliver’s third solo exhibition with Inman Gallery, concurrent with Fotofest’s 2010 Biennial. Special gallery event: Saturday March 13th, 12 NOON, Gallery Walkthrough of Albedo. Please join us as gallerist Kerry Inman leads a walkthrough of Demetrius Oliver’s exhibition, Albedo. We look forward to a group discussion of the meanings of the objects, images, and experiences of the show.

In Albedo, comprising a series of photographs, an installation, and a sculpture, Demetrius Oliver explores the effects and potential meanings of reflected light. In astronomy, albedo describes the ability of a celestial body, including Earth, to reflect (or, conversely, absorb) solar radiation—snow, for example, has a higher albedo than dirt. Derived from the Latin “albus,” meaning white, albedo is also an alchemical phase, the stage in which impurities are removed.

Oliver transforms common objects to evoke poetic associations between physical materials and abstract ideas. Albedo, 2010, presents a single, carry-on piece of luggage unzipped to reveal surreal contents: incandescent light bulbs and chunks of lustrous anthracite coal. Light bulbs appear again as structure and surface in the photographic series Ember, 2007. In each image, Oliver’s hand clenches a fistful of lightbulbs, creating a globular mass onto which the artist has projected photographs of workspaces.

The installation, Mare, 2009, projects light directly onto the gallery walls and, incidentally, the bodies of gallery viewers. A digital projector presents a slideshow of a rotating, circular image of a crashing wave. The projector is placed on a spinning turntable, and the image orbits the room. Connecting personal means and empyrean phenomena, the installation recreates the sense of wonderment felt when looking at the night sky, and the desire to understand one’s place in the universe. Moreover, Mare, Latin for “seas”, recalls both ancient conceptions of the moon’s dark spots as oceans* and Earth’s tides, created by the moon’s gravitational pull. The three parts of the exhibition together suggest narratives of energy stored and transferred, as well as metaphors of darkness and illumination, looking and discovery.

Albedo continues Oliver’s interest in transcendental thought, in particular the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His study of luminosity is based as much in intuition as observation. Both introspective and expansive, micro and macro, Oliver’s practice investigates the cosmos from the vantage point of the artist’s studio and the space of the gallery. The exhibition, likewise, is also a reflection on the medium of photography, whose dynamics of light captured and cast mirror the effects of albedo.

*Lunar seas are actually low-albedo volcanic plains, though recent findings of water on the moon suggest this interpretation was not
totally misled.

Demetrius Oliver (b. 1975, Brooklyn, NY) lives and works in New York, NY. He received his B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI (1998) and his M.F.A from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (2004), and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, ME (2004).

From 2004-06 he was an artist resident at the Core Program, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX and from 2006-07, an artist-in-residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY. His work has been exhibited widely, with recent solo exhibitions at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA (2009); Rhodes College, Memphis, TN (2009); the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, GA (2006); and P.S.1, New York, NY (2006).

Notable group exhibitions include 30 Seconds Off An Inch, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2010); Your Gold Teeth II, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY (2009); Black Is, Black Ain't, The Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL (2008); and Frequency, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2005).

Pictured above: Demetrius Oliver, detail of Ember lV, 2007 digital chromogenic print, ed. 3 29 x 43 3/4 inches