"Yesterday Today and Tomorrow" at Stairwell

From my review of the group show "Yesterday Today and Tomorrow" at Stairwell Gallery in Providence:

Haley O'Connor, the co-founder of Stairwell Gallery, includes a few of her own photos in the gallery's new show, "Yesterday Today and Tomorrow." Two depict plants, blurrily pulled out of darkness by a blast of flash. The blur, the obliterating glare of flash are classic photography don'ts. But O'Connor sees in them potential -- like a wizardly spark -- for visionary images unique to the medium. "When you can capture magic and it's unbelievable," she tells me, "then you're doing what you can do with nothing else."

I don't feel that magic. But her images and the work of the five other photographers here provide a survey of a style percolating among ambitious art photographers under, say, 35. It can feel like a search for visionary experience amidst banal everyday America. It often seems to incorporate the vivid snapshot aesthetic of Nan Goldin, '80s nostalgia, and glimpses into the lives of dissolute angelheaded hipsters.

Read the rest here.

"Yesterday Today and Tomorrow," features photos by Haley O'Connor, Natalja Kent, Asher Penn, Jack Ritchie, Ports Bishop and McKenzie Burris-Granger, Stairwell Gallery, 504 Broadway, Providence, Sept. 27 to Oct. 25, 2009.

Pictured from top to bottom: Photos by Haley O'Connor, Natalja Kent and Haley O'Connor.