Demolition is easy and fun, while building up is always so difficult. But we all would prefer to live in a building rather than a shambles, right? In our current society, seek people who are building, rather than tearing down — that's where the power is.
Monica Jane Frisell and Adam Scher are doing just that by traveling the country and assembling a series called Portraits of US. While Artists-in-Residence at the Art and History Museums of Maitland last year and in early 2023, the couple created portraits of people in Central Florida, and these are now on display in the gallery.
Frisell and Scher began roaming in 2021, late in the pandemic, and haven't stopped since. They have moved between artist-in-residency programs and spent time getting to know people before they start photographing them. Scher and Frisell befriend their subjects, make videos of their stories, and cap it off with a still portrait. The videos are either two-minute snippets or longer pieces, like the untitled video in the Maitland Art Center gallery, stitching together about 70 slices of life from Vermont, Washington state and, yes, Central Florida. You'll get a gasp of recognition here and there as familiar places snap into focus.
The photographs in (Un)Common Bond range from 8 by 10 inches to enlargements at least double that size. A grid of photos in the first gallery comprises mostly local portraits, and each image is brimming with stories. A man in a checked shirt looks dourly at the camera, the background almost black as night. A woman holds an owl. A young man holds a camera, peering at the viewer as if considering an angle.
Deeper in the gallery, the variety continues. Millard, from Eatonville, smiles triumphantly, while Keith, in Savannah, defends his Chrysler with arms crossed. What comes through these portraits is a sense of tenderness, something beyond mere documentation. Frisell and Scher have leapt over a barrier and gotten into the lives of these people with an intimate view of them, inviting the viewer into that space.
The luscious, creamy tones of these photo prints stand out among pixelly cameraphone images flooding our retinas daily. Frisell and Scher achieve these by using a 1940s Kodak Master Field Camera, a tripod-mounted large-format beast of a camera around which they have built a complete mobile darkroom, office and living space dubbed the Nomadic Photo Ark. There are no casual snapshots here; each one is staged and deliberate.
This just might be the genius of the enterprise. Portraits of US has a double meaning: us, meaning we the people, and US, meaning the United States. This mosaic of individuals and community life reads as a collective statement that builds up, converges, and finally leaves the viewer with a sense of being part of a single group called Americans.
Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | or sign up for our RSS Feed
