Beyond Reckoning

Tracey Baran
Leslie Tonkonow Gallery, NYC
Sep 15 – Nov 19
From September 15th to November 19th the Leslie Tonkonow gallery showcased the work “In Process” by Tracey Baran, a brilliant young artist whose short career spanned over 10 years. This is the gallery’s fourth solo presentation of works by Tracey, surveying the brief life and career of a young photographer. The work showcases intimate moments that the photographer had with her friends and family while also depicting herself in the images.

Also on display are over 100 contact sheets and that show you the ways in which she was shooting and working. In many of her images there is an effect of doubling, whether it is reflection or multiple people interacting in similar ways. It shows an almost dream like state as if there are multiple realities. Especially in her double exposure where everything is blue and she seems to be hovering over herself in a double exposed self portrait, where the light meets right where her mouths touch.

There’s a subtle delicacy to all her work where her subjects seems very comfortable with the photographer. It’s as if they don’t know she’s there, however the images depicted sometimes seem to be staged moments of maybe something that she saw in real life. Her photos are very psychologically charged, for example the one of Joseph in the bathtub reads as a somber feeling of contemplating giving up, however there is a bright beam of light shining off the white walled bathtub which reveals a sense of hope or enlightenment.

Her connectedness to her subjects shows in her work, and it’s easy to see that she was a talented soul, whose passion for photography outshines all else. The work was transformative in the way it made me question processes of photography and also interactions with others. The effect of seeing these prints and contacts in person is much more effective than on a computer screen.

By Billy Sears