MOLLY LANDRETH
Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America
National premiere | Seattle photographer Molly Landreth describes her new photography project as an archive, a journey, and a community: "This series records the lives of people who bravely offer new visions of what it means to be young and queer today."
Taking photos of young lesbian, gay and transgender Americans across the country, Landreth has focused on the complex relationships that exist among a very diverse group. Her subjects playfully reveal unique and subtle shades of gender expression. At the same time, with a glance or gesture, they question and revise the notion of what it means to be a family.
Despite a sense of innovation and boundary-breaking, there's something of a universal impulse underlying the photos, one that most young people will recognize. "It's about love," says Landreth, "and the process of growing up into one's self.
The images on view in Embodiment were created using either a 4x5” view camera or a 35mm Hasselblad. (Unlike many of her peers, Landredth continues to shoot on film.) The prints are large: she typically prints her rectangular shots at 32 by 40 inches, and her square shots at 35 inches. All of her prints employ archival, pigmented inks.
Landreth, 29, received her BA in art from Scripps College in Claremont, Cal., and her MFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. As a student, she cultivated a love of photography, digital art, feminism and art history. While at the School of Visual Arts, she also began her current project, Embodiment. Her work has been shown in Toronto, New York, Los Angeles and Seattle. She is currently lives and works in Seattle.
Her exhibition at CSPS is Molly Landreth's first solo show. Embodiment was funded in part by a grant from the Humble Arts Foundation.
June 5 through July 6
CSPS | 1103 Third St SE | Cedar Rapids
Open Weds through Sun 11 to 6