Week 25: Talia Chetrit

The rotating gallery features the work of a young emerging photographer as well as an interview with him/her, and will change every Wednesday. The gallery is based off ‘collective curatorship’, where the photographer from week 1 chooses and interviews a photographer for week 2, week 2 chooses/interviews week 3, etc. There is only one stipulation to the process: Next weeks photographer has to be someone he/she has not had direct contact with yet. Ideally, this will take the gallery on a linked tour around the Internet, and exploring and unearthing new photographers as it goes.

This week, Timothy Briner interviews Talia Chetrit.

“Triangle 2008, InkJet Print”

Timothy Briner: After spending quite a bit of time with your work, I get the sense that you are not only inspired by light and color, which is evident in the title of a few select images, but that you have a deep appreciation for the illusion of space, or our perception of space.  I also find that your work follows many of the questions and properties found in Geometry.  Can you talk about your inspiration for this work?

Talia Chetrit: I have an interest in perception of space and the ways in which it can be manipulated. More importantly, I’m fascinated with the way one deciphers and analyzes images and the inherent expectations when looking at a photograph. This leads me to experiment and play with light and space in the studio using such basics items as paper, lights, fabrics and other things you may find in a typical photographers studio. Although my work often looks manipulated by a computer all the works are created in front of the camera. In some instances (when I am flashing lights at the camera), the film captures something that is invisible to the eye and only recorded by the film.

“Grayscale (testrips) 2008, silver-gelatin print (dyptych)”

TB: In some of your newer work, like the Gradient Tool series, you seem to be making a statement on how people use and manipulate images in a digital world.  Are these images made in front of the camera as well, or is photoshop a tool used within this series?

TC: The Gradient Tool Series is made up of eight traditional black-and-white prints from images created using Photoshop’s gradient tool, which are then made into digital 8 x 10 negatives. With these large-scale negatives I return to the traditional darkroom to make contact prints on silver gelatin paper. The traditional prints allude to conventional photography, although the original images are digitally fabricated on the computer and were never photographs.

The process of trying to categorize photography and its capabilities led me to this series. I am working out the edges of the definition where reality and un-reality, digital and analogue, and subject and non-subject become slippery terms. While continuing to explore light and space, the black to white gradient tool allows me to create the illusion of rendering space with highlights and shadows that never existed in three dimensions.

“Grayscale 2008, Inkjet print”

“Cube 2008, Inkjet print”

TB: Pieces from Gradient Tool are being shown this week at Boce Pacia in NY.  You also have your debut solo show coming up at Renwick Gallery in NY.  I think it’s beneficial to discuss how artists are creating relationships and getting shows these days.  Do you do the traditional portfolio drop off?  What advice can you give to others who are looking to get work in group shows and their first solo show?

TC: Having a good community is so important. My friends have been incredibly helpful in getting my work out there. My advice is to be supportive of your friends. Have studio visits with them and anyone who will come over. Go over to other people’s studio and repay the favor.

“#4 From series Gradient Tool 2008, Silver-gelatin print”

“#3 From series Gradient Tool 2008, Silver-gelatin print”

TB: You were one of the winners of the Blurb Photography Now competition a year ago.  Has this or any other competition helped your career?

TC: The amazing part about submitting my work to the Photography Now competition was having the impressive group of judges see my work.  Though I’m not sure if anything tangible has come from it, the exposure was great.

“Primary Colors Flashed at White 2008, Inkjet print”


“Primary Colors Flashed at Black 2008, Inkjet print”

TB: Lately I’ve been very interested in how artists evolve.  There is a lot of pressure to continue creating something relevant and interesting.  Your work is thoughtful and exciting.  That doesn’t happen over night.  What were some of the challenges you went through to get to the place you are now with your work?    And how often do you stress about or think about the next project or phase of your work?

TC: Thanks!  My work, and I think most artists’ work, is the accumulation of a lifetime of research, influences and experiences that continuously inform our next series of choices. Ever since I started making photographs, I’ve been interested in the way things can be manipulated through the lens. When I was in undergrad at the Art Institute of Chicago, I made in-camera multiple exposures of interactions between people that were impossible without using that particular camera trick. I’ve always liked relying on the inherent properties of the camera to build meaning. Soon after that series, I started playing exclusively with objects and space, which has slowly developed into the photographs I’m making now.

My practice follows more of a painter’s structure where everything happens within the confines of my studio. The evolution of the work is more gradual and is only separated into different projects and series during the editing process. This is much less stressful then working series to series since I never have that depressing between periods. But whenever I feel like I’m out of good ideas, I try to just make pictures anyway. Some will be horrible but eventually I’ll get somewhere.

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Work from Chetrit’s Gradient Tool series is now on display in a group show titled After Color, curated by Amani Olu.  After Color opened this week at Bose Pacia in New York.  Talia Chetrit is represented by Renwick Gallery in New York.