Exhibition Dates: December 4, 2010 – January 29, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, December 4th, 6 – 8 pm
Location: Arthur Roger @ 434, 434 Julia St., New Orleans, LA 70130
Gallery Hours: Monday – Saturday, 10 am – 5 pm
Contact Info: 504.522.1999; www.arthurrogergallery.com
The Arthur Roger Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of recent photographs by David Halliday. The exhibition will be on view at Arthur Roger @ 434 located at 434 Julia Street from December 4th – January 29th, 2010. The gallery will host an opening reception to meet the artist on Saturday, December 4th, from 6 to 8 pm.
In this exhibition, David Halliday presents photographs that appear visually brighter and lighter in energy than his more intimate and formal sepia-toned photographs. Halliday floods images in this series with head-on light causing the shadows to almost disappear and the picture plane to flatten. The illusion of depth and three-dimensionality become obscured or even obliterated, allowing the objects to appear as if they are floating in space. Texture, pattern, shape and color are the main ingredients in these loose compositions where the objects are free to play against and with one another.
David Halliday, Corn Cobs and Blue Vase, 2008. Archival pigment print, 17 x 21 1/2 inches.
Halliday has a talent for creating interesting environments where common objects appear uncommon. This can be seen in Corn Cobs + Blue Vase, 2008, the first image made in the series. Here, a blue vase and a plate of corn are set on a simple white linen tablecloth against a wallpaper remnant from an abandoned house. In this photograph, the objects seem curiously ungrounded. Almost all perspective is eliminated leaving the viewer with no sense of where the table begins or ends. Like many of the other photographs in this series, the objects appear to be impossibly placed leaving the viewer to feel as if they may fall out of the picture plane. Halliday states:
My workspace is my living space – there are no boundaries. There is no true northern exposure or southern exposure- things are changing constantly. From back to front, side to side, any window, at any moment might be the ‘right’ one. As controlled as things seem in my photographs it is, in the end, recognizing and seizing that brief moment when all appears to be ‘right’.
Born in Glen Cove, New York in 1958, David Halliday moved to New Orleans to take a job as a chef at The Bistro at the Maison de Ville. He abandoned working as a chef, but often his work relates to the epicurean world. He attended Syracuse University and pursued further studies under the tutelage of Arnold Newman. Halliday has been photographing for nearly two decades. He has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe. In 2002, the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans exhibited a retrospective of his work. Halliday’s work is included in numerous public and private collections including the New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas and New Britain Museum of Art, New Britain, Connecticut.