No Place I'd Rather Be: Terri Loewenthal

Hexton Aspen is pleased to present Terri Loewenthal’s first exhibition with the gallery, featuring recent photographs from her Psychscape series.  In this expansive look at Loewenthal’s unique vision, No Place I’d Rather Be delves into the artist’s exploration of landscape, sound, color, and the imaginary space found between reality and the unconscious mind.

Loewenthal’s technical achievements are the foundation for her conceptual exploration.  Over the past decade the artist experimented with various optical devices that would allow her to both alter color and perspective in a single shot.  The resulting works are not digital or darkroom manipulations, nor are they multiple exposures.  Each work is a single image as if collaged in thin air.  Light and imagery refract and reflect through filters just beyond the lens of her medium format camera, revealing images of a place familiar yet unreal.  They sit somewhere at the edge of the viewer’s mind, drenched in saturated hues layered over small bits of nature’s true color.

Loewenthal set out to bring a new voice to the American West.  She endeavored to create a decidedly contemporary look at the grandeur first immortalized by the likes of Ansel Adams.  Loewenthal’s blending of color conjures emotions felt but unseen through the naked lens of traditional photographic images.  We can feel the color in these works just as we can nearly hear them in concert with one another.  Her colors emanate frequencies and energy that penetrate beyond sight.  This notion of sound is familiar territory for the artist, with music playing an important role in her life as a writer and performer alongside her visual practice.  Just as Jimi Hendrix saw purple in the chords of Purple Haze, the inverse seems true here in these vibrant tones. 

In many ways, Loewenthal’s images are more aligned with painting than photography. These landscapes are someplace, no place, yet everyplace at the same time.  They do not exist as presented here and are intentionally devoid of any human trace.  Like a painter, she imagines the world vs simply capturing what nature has provided. 

These works rely on Loewenthal’s technical and conceptual prowess, allowing us access mainly through our own personal experiences.  She lets the viewer fill in the gaps between the conscious and unconscious layers of color, form and emotions.  It is this personal intimacy that brings Loewenthal’s decade-long experiment to life.  By merging our own psychological perspective together with the physical landscape around us, the work culminates in what the artist has aptly labeled, Psychscapes.