State of the Arts Blog

Is your home your castle? Your fortress? A wasteland?

[image]

Last night I went to the opening of an exhibition of four McKnight photography fellows at Franklin Art Works in Minneapolis. While all four have very interesting and different things to say with their work, I was particularly drawn to the juxtaposition of the images of two of the photographers, Anthony Marchetti and Tom Wik. Both deal with personal space, although one looks at the walls we put up from the outside, while the other haunts the sad interiors we leave behind.

[image]

Palm Beach Shores 2, 2009

Tom Wik explores Floridian estates with an eye for the absurd. He finds houses and hedges that are often out of proportion with one another. The beauty of a brightly colored stucco home comes across as plastic, and poorly executed. These are houses that appear inpenetrable, but make you wonder just what kind of person lives there.

[image]

Riviera Beach 3, 2009

[image]

5-325 BR, 2009

Anthony Marchetti is what is called a "turn painter." He comes in and gives an apartment a new coat of paint before the next tenant moves in. His photographs capture the "inbetween moment" when the apartment still holds the residue of those who've just left.

[image]

7786-2, LR, 2009

You can read more about Marchetti's work, and see more of his photographs in a story by MPR's Chris Roberts.