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Asha Fuller: Comospolitan Magazine Fashion Photographer's Solo Exhibition in NYC
In his first one-person show at Riviera, Tennessee born, New York based artist, Asha Fuller, presents large scale photographic portraits accompanied by autobiographical text that address concepts of identity and community while challenging stereotypes of the rural south. Fuller is the son of Leon and Clarissa Fuller, founders of one the last few permanent American puppetry troupes, Wood and Strings. www.woodandstrings.net
 Print View
April 4, 2006 (FPRC) --
Photographer: Asha Fuller
Show: "No Place Like Home"
Exhibition: April 13 – April 30, 2006
Opening night reception, Thursday, April 13th, 6:30-9:30pm @ Riviera, 103 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 11211
(L train to Bedford Ave stop, walk 4 blocks south to Metropolitan Ave and right 2 blocks. Between Berry and Wythe)
For additional information, please contact Riviera at 718.599.5589 or info@seeyouattheriviera.com or visit www.seeyouattheriviera.com
For images, log on to www.ashafuller.com and visit portfolio 3
Asha Fuller, in his first solo show at Riviera, presents No Place Like Home, a photographic exploration assailing the regional stereotypes that create intra-structural isolation regarding the South. This Exhibition fractures those perceptions and exposes universal themes of home and community. Coupling these large color portraits with autobiographical text the artist has created quintessential stories of Hometown South that are lapidary and subversive.
As a young man overcome by wanderlust, the artist left his rural environs in Tennessee and set out on a journey of self-discovery. During his extensive travels through out the Continental United States, he received a letter from his father accompanied by an old family photograph with an inscription that read, ‘It’s a good thing to know where you come from because it helps you get where you’re going.’ He decided to return to his hometown of Centerville, Hickman County, to explore this idea. Using his trusty 4x5 camera and a small closet in his parents’ house as a dark room, Fuller began what proved to be a cathartic endeavor of expression and introspection. The initial project took six months to bring to fruition and is ongoing. The selection of subjects was through an intuitive process allowing his memories to appeal to his imagination creating a nexus of identity and craft. The artist was awakened to his past. His ‘line of flight’ back through his origins is not re-discovery, but first-discovery. These photographs become self-contained memories, clues to the photographer’s relation to his home and to his own identity.
Fuller’s fascination with the human condition is evident in this project. Douglas T. Bates III (2004) and Douglas T. Bates IV (2004), present father and son with proud countenance before their hunting trophies and military regalia; conventions of southern society and Americana are used to bring out preconceptions. These notions are then challenged by the accompanying text, which focuses on the individual’s life story and legacy. This forces further cogitative examination and a deeper understanding of the individual and their voice. By capturing his subjects in their familiar surroundings (rather than before a flat backdrop) the artist has sufficiently provided them with form. The observer’s scrutiny becomes more informed. The disparity between induced impression of the individual and their origin, which is explicitly provided by the text, is a dramatic presentation of prejudice.
Fuller further uses the text in accordance with the photograph to heighten the disparity between initial visual perception and personal connection, until all of a sudden the aesthetic image reveals a more complex and in depth biography. Each wrinkle on their face and scar on their hand becomes a chronicle of a life lived: Mary Hill Hickman Horner (2004), stands outside the room in which she was born 90 years ago. She touches the first afghan she’d ever knitted with a hand (almost as colorful as the yarns) that seems to recognize it as the product of its labor. She has begun her life in this house, filled it with her family, her crafts, and will leave it changed and full of memories. Within the frame of each photograph we see the details of the person’s taste, the objects of their experience. The photographs act as an index of their lives. There are books, furniture, movement, the appurtenances of trade, imprints of a lifestyle that distills the home space, sublimates walls and floors, whole acres of land into a refuge. Captured in these photographs is natural ease, a kind of grace that comes from the harmony of lifestyle and environment. This is home.
While still in undergraduate studies and after a chance meeting, Asha Fuller was discovered by renowned Director of Photography, Dennis Anderson. He was subsequently offered the opportunity to shoot for one of the widest read magazines in America, Cosmopolitan. Since then he has had images appear in almost every issue of Cosmo to date. In spite of commercial opportunities he persisted with his studies and graduated magna cum laude with a BFA in photography from Barry University. Less than a year out of school he has already made significant strides in his commercial career, shooting his first international magazine cover (Pashion) and his first national advertising campaign (Colavita). In addition to his commercial work, his photographs have been part of six group exhibitions and have been shown in the Photographers Forum Best of College Photography Annual (2003).
Send an email to Jeana Hong of JH Productions
917-549-4664
Keywords:
gallery, photography, exhibit
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