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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Sixty Nine: How to make expressive photographs in “bad” light > Empty art gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona, 2009
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28-APR-2009

Empty art gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona, 2009

The collapse of the economy has put a number of Scottsdale’s art galleries out of business. This empty gallery building was on a corner, and had windows on both its side and in front. I made this image of its side window because the harsh mid afternoon sun reflects the stucco wall of neighboring building upon it, creating a rough texture that symbolically seems to seal the empty gallery off and making the series of rooms seen beyond it look even more grim. The hot light creates a glowing surface of golden color on the wall at right, which represents the buildings better days. The geometry of reflection and interior panels tell the story of the structure’s current plight. The high, harsh light provides an ideal mood for such an image as this.

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Phil Douglis05-May-2021 23:23
Thanks, Scarlet, for your fresh interpretation of this image. "Making art out of the artless" is exactly what I was trying to do in this photograph, which I made at the height of the Great Recession twelve years ago. The longer you look at this image, the more art you will find in it, created entirely by light, shadow, reflection, geometry, texture, and color. Of course, much depends upon my title and the caption information here. If you did not know that this was formerly an art gallery, the sense of irony you find would be lost.
scarlet, 04-May-2021 13:11
I find this image very intriguing, as it holds a sense of irony: you're making art out of the artless. What looks not in use suddenly becomes it's intended purpose.
Phil Douglis05-May-2009 16:13
The refection of the heavily textured wall in this window is the key to the image, Alina. It reinforces the harsh reality of economic dislocation, and as you say, it acts as a final curtain being drawn across the life of this art gallery. It is also, as you note, linked to the inside of the building as well -- a foreground geometric plane that helps anchor the image.
Alina05-May-2009 13:31
This is interesting shot. It caught my eye immediately and I was trying to separate inside of the building from outside reflection. The wall reflection looks like a window curtain to me.
Phil Douglis02-May-2009 21:28
Thanks, Tim, for relating this image to both Hopper and Friedlander. I have been attracted to Hopper's shadows, color, and light, and the sense of loneliness that often is expressed in his paintings. And I have followed Friedlander's work since the 1970s. Incongruously set store windows are often seen in his work. I liked this one because of the strange chair that sits alone in a stream of light within a sterile window. My image of this empty art gallery is probably influenced to a degree by both artists. I don't set out to emulate either Hopper or Friedlander here, but I obviously am influenced by their work.
Tim May02-May-2009 03:47
Today I visited a show at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco called "Edward Hopper and Company." Quite an interesting show but this image not only reminds me of Hopper but especially of this image http://www.fraenkelgallery.com/index.php#mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&s=5&a=10&p=2&at=1 by Lee Friedlander.
Phil Douglis01-May-2009 19:19
I was just thinking the same thing, Carol, and was even going to add it to the caption. Although the gallery stands empty, the harshly textured reflection in the window and the geometry of emptiness within create a sense of performance art in itself. Our own imaginations can fill in the details, as your own imagination so eloquently suggests.
Phil Douglis01-May-2009 19:16
Thanks, Rose, for seeing the light and geometry here as symbolic of hard times. I agree -- the emptiness here seems to wander without end. (Kind of like this long economic recession we are in!) Your own image uses similar techniques (light, shadow, texture, and geometry) but you tell a quite different story with it. Your image makes us want to reflect on the passage of time itself, while this one asks us to consider the difficulty artists have always faced in terms of a livelihood.
Carol E Sandgren01-May-2009 03:46
Phil, I actually see this textured reflection as a piece of art in the empty gallery. The angled edge intersecting the straight lines of the empty walls creates real interest, and the texture is so well defined. Maybe I'm just a dreamer though. One day the gallery will come back to life. For now we've got reflection art inside.
sunlightpix01-May-2009 03:21
Phil, I recently posted a somewhat similar composition utilizing the geometry of shadows, but instead of expressing emptiness, I captured a shadow persona.
http://www.pbase.com/sunlightpix/image/111894024
sunlightpix01-May-2009 03:11
Harsh light and sharp angles for hard times. The emptiness seems to echo through the building. The interior walls loom like blank canvases, waiting for better days.
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