“These photographs tell something that echoes our own lives, yet they are portraits of strangers. The boundary between them and us is blurring. Finally, whose story is this photograph? Ours.” With these words, Judith Joy Ross (1946) synthesizes the deep meaning of her artistic approach: to think about life, the contemporary world and more particularly her country, the United States, through portrait.
Because for more than forty years, her reflections have used the lens of large photographic cameras as a means of entering into contact with strangers. At the start, there is an existential or social concern caused, for example, by the loss of a loved one, such as the disappearance of her father, or a major political event, such as the attacks of September 11 or the Gulf War. These events pushed her towards specific places: the park she frequented in her childhood, a nature reserve offering an ideal view of Manhattan and the void left by the destruction of the twin towers… Then the portraits that Judith Joy Ross created during her encounters, most often the result of chance finally allowed her to express her emotions; and to build, over time, a gallery of images imbued with delicacy that allows her to write a metaphorical autobiography.
Cristianne Rodrigues
www.cristiannerodrigues.com
Judith Joy Ross : Photographies 1978-2015
Exhibition curator: Joshua Chuang
Until September 18, 2022
LE BAL
6, impasse de la Défense 75018 Paris
www.le-bal.fr
