Continuing through May 8, 2011
Uta Barth is a photographer known for her sensual, blurred images. She is interested in the act of seeing, while discernable objects are of secondary concern. Barth's works often depict abstracted landscapes with a focus on color, texture, and pattern. Her series of waterless lithographs, "...in passing" sources magazine images cropped to remove their intended subjects. Slivers of models pose next to expanses of blank wall, colorfully geometric urban scenes, or forests in fading silhouette.
Barth aims her camera to mimic the function of our eyes. Inspired by ocular fatigue, one striking diptych renders an ordinary image of flowers into an abstraction. Through a ruby lens, the original image is made negative: on a red ground, red flowers are now white. The removal of all other color charges this mundane image with the strength of its own shape and form. By manipulating what we see, Barth provides a lesson in how to look.
Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington
