JHB Gallery is delighted to present a selection of work by artist Amanda Means at Jetsam Studio, Southampton, Long Island. The exhibition includes examples of Means’ iconic Water Glass and Light Bulb series, alongside early photographic Flower pieces and recent Abstracts produced using the artist’s characteristic innovative darkroom processes.
Amanda Means has been at the forefront of experimental photographic practice for over thirty years. The artist’s breakthrough monumental Water Glass prints came with her conversion of a nineteenth century wooden camera into a darkroom enlarger, which allowed her to photograph whole objects directly, without the use of a camera or negative; the water glass itself becomes its own light source, at once recalling the photographic pioneers, while striking a tone of singular minimalist directness that Means has made all her own.
The artist develops this focus on inner radiance with her Light Bulb pieces, creating a series of intensely detailed images of incandescent lightbulbs in both silver gelatin prints, as well as large-format color Polaroids. In these striking works, the innate luminosity of the light bulb creates the image’s exposure, filtered through a nuanced set of exposure settings and gels.
In her recent Abstract works, Means continues to forge new paths, now making the materials and chemistry of the darkroom the subject of her work: scoring and folding her photographic paper, and hand-pouring developer over the exposed sheets—masterfully manipulating control and chance in the creation of the finished print.
Amanda Means is a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow, awarded for her contribution to contemporary photography. She has exhibited widely in the US and abroad and will open a career retrospective at University Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, in September this year. The artist’s work is included in many public collections including Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Philadelphia Museum of Art; The Nicola Erni Collection, Switzerland; and National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, England.
