Opening reception: October 11, 2012. 6:30 – 9:30 p.m.
From October 11 through November 7, 2012.
Concrete Perspective is a solo exhibition of monumental photographs that transports viewers into ambiguous environments where our city’s soaring sites of construction take center stage after being vividly altered. Gallery owner, Oscar Ascanio, was captivated by Hester’s ability to draw out subtle undertones of delicacy and beauty in otherwise seemingly cold and inanimate structures.
“Hester’s photographs engage and surprise viewers by revealing an aesthetic that’s seemingly musical. Construction materials, such as, concrete, tubes, screws and cables are transformed into sensible and visually delightful surfaces,” said Ascanio. “There is undeniable beauty in these inanimate landscapes that lie dormant around us and enrich our surroundings – many times without us noticing.”
Hester’s photographs conjure a distinct human quality. They evoke the urban surroundings we travel to-and-from work, our places of leisure and commerce, the flow and ebb of a vibrant metropolis. They also compel us to look beyond the obvious to embrace the unseen poetry of the concrete surfaces of these structures.
For example, in an angular close up of an overhead section of Herzog & de Meuron’s iconic 1111 Lincoln Road design, the artist freezes a slab of concrete the tropical sun never penetrates. But Hester succeeds in capturing the incandescent glow radiating across the surface cast from fluorescent lighting, as if suggesting the vanishing electric blue whispers of twilight before the sun fades.
The documentation of the simultaneous inter-reliant relationship between man and construction, construction and the environment, and the unintentional emotional response to the design process is what Hester captures.
“The process is made up of the constructed environment, memory and the universal desire to be flawless,” said Hester. “It is a process that instigates the recognition that even in the most basic bare-boned structures such as the University of Florida Stadium and highway overpasses, or that in the most elemental need to park, one can encounter a powerful and revelatory emotion of self-acceptance inherent in the architecture itself.”
O. Ascanio Gallery
2600 NW 2nd Avenue
Miami, FL 33127
305.571.9036
www.oascaniogallery.com
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