Barbara Vogel Luminosity

The Columbus Gallery Hop is scheduled once a month, but I still always manage to arrive late- often too late to take in any galleries! October 5^th was one of those days for my wife and I. On our way to enjoy a delicious but overpriced treat of Jenny’s Ice Cream (a local favorite and regular tradition), we poked our noses against the window at the Sherrie Gallerie ( 694 N. High St. Columbus, Ohio). In the dim auxiliary light coming thru the window, I could just make out these ghostly apparitions staring back at me from countless black frames. I knew I had to return, if only to assuage my curiosity.

It took me another week, but I finally made it when they were open. The show, Barbara Vogel Luminosity, was worth the wait. Mrs. Vogel’s Bachelor of fine arts and Master of fine arts in photography both came from the Ohio State University. She resides in Grandview Heights, Ohio. Her show will be up until November 9^th.

Upon closer inspection, and with much better lighting, I did not lose that ghostly apparition effect. Not in the least. As a matter of fact, I would say the effect was much stronger directly. Displayed were a series of portrait oriented pictures stacked within an inch of each other, extending the length of the wall on both sides. The effect was that of stacked tombstones. The heightened repetition of form made the collection seem quite limitless, but also had the effect of making each image less special. It felt like an archive or a catalog. The combination of some smiling faces, the mix of the views from front to ¾ view, and the use of first names seemed to want to make the subjects personal, but the effect of stacking really canceled that out.  

I found myself transported to the Pere Lachaise Cemetary in Paris. Off the beaten path were a series of crematorium tombs tucked into a hallway of sorts, most decorated with sepia tone photos looking out at the visitors from the other side. I poured over the photos and tried to imagine the lives attached to them. These photos had that same strange eternal feeling, and I was captivated.

These “photos” were bleached of all but the faintest color, and they had a strange but beautiful shifting feel to them that gave the illusion that they existed behind the frame in three dimensions. The final touch was that the photos were entombed in encaustic. The lack of color combined with the shifting lack of focus made them feel like old photos with a strong link to history.

Not only was there an element of time implied by the archive, and by the reference to historical photos, but they also just felt like they were not just one second trapped, but several minutes trapped in one picture.  These wonderful mysterious photos seemed to exist outside of time.

Mrs. Vogel’s statement may help clarify her intent:  The “clickless” work presented is created from a hand held wand scanner, a “decisive moment” when my photographer’s eye and brain signaled my hand to press the shutter and capture the person’s character. This allows a new perspective on portraiture and gives my work overtones of mystery and intimacy. All of my images are fused with encaustic, giving the portrait or landscape a more haunting and ephemeral quality.

Ok, so my read was a bit dramatic, but pretty spot on in many ways! On my way out I got to speak with Sherrie Fox, the Gallery owner. She informed me that it took quite a while to figure out how to pour the hot wax on to the photos without burning them! Sometimes process can be boring, but the combination of the physicality of the hand held wand scanner recording time, and the use of hot wax to seal the image in perpetuity was far from boring. Bravo!

                         Aaron Smith