January 27, 2017

Featuring Artist Rahshia Sawyer

On Exhibit Wednesday, January 11, 2017 through Sunday, February 11, 2017

Opening Reception Saturday, January 28, 2017 from 7-9pm

Statement

Our experience of the world is not static; it is a compilation of layers. Maturing over time, we add layers upon layers, becoming ridged, but never finite. Finding beauty anchors us to our humanity; it acts as the balance between reality and fantasy.  Guiding us to ask the existential questions of our identity, our reality, and our beliefs. Often leading us to examine layers of significant transitions, when we passed from the known to the unknown. This time is described by many as a sensation of floating — a disconnection from their reality.

My work contrasts a daedalian journey of figurative photographs, with the subject disconnected from the ground as a signifier of their transforming reality. Each composition is selected to be neutral — to highlight that sliver of space between positive and negative. Allowing the works abstract quality to be informed by the viewer, recreating a singular struggle with our emotions — an experience we all share.

About

Rahshia Sawyer is a conceptual photographer based in the Washington DC area. She was the 2012 recipient of the Contemporary Talents award from France’s François Schneider Foundation. Exhibited in the 2012 Inaugural Dublin Biennial, her photographs and installations have been included in numerous group shows in Canada, England, France, Ireland, Spain, and the United States. Her work is featured in the permanent collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Foundation François Schneider, and Radford University Museum. More recently, she was a 2015 Trawick semi-finalist, a 2015 Finalist in the 8th edition of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award, and received an honorable mention at the 2015 Fine Art Photography Awards. Rahshia received her MFA from George Mason University in Virginia, and her BFA at the Corcoran College of Art & Design in Washington DC. Her current projects examine relationships between beauty and humanity and its balanced (or imbalanced) interaction between reality and fantasy.