"Kids," which opened Friday at the Bell Gallery, showcases the photography of three artists who feature children as their subject. Works by Julie Blackmon, Jill Greenberg and Ruud van Empel reflect the late 20th-century trend of using digital techniques to remove photography from its association with reality, essentially creating constructed images. Part fantastical and part realistic, the images created by Blackmon, Greenberg and van Empel do not document a moment in time but instead capture the artists' interpretations of a subject.
Blackmon uses a number of photographs, sometimes as many as five, which she then digitally collages and color enhances to create one clean but complex surreal scene. Blackmon takes pictures of her extended family in Springfield, Mo., but by staging and collaging the photos she takes, her pieces become "both fictional and autobiographical," she wrote in her artist's statement.
She cites the work of Jan Steen, a 17th-century Dutch artist who painted scenes of boisterous family gatherings with rowdy children, as an inspiration for both her subject matter and busy compositions.
Blackmon's "Play Group" captures a scene in the entrance room of a house. Toddlers and their playthings are scattered across the floor while a mother, standing barefoot in a black dress and pearls, chats with two others sitting on the floor. The door is open to reveal two women in heels sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch. Blackmon's images are charming and cute, but they also beg a further glance, offering viewers a poignant glimpse into modern-day family life.
Greenberg captures crying children with the same elaborate studio lighting and retouching she used as a commercial photographer. Tears of deep anguish, hysteria and pain fall down the faces of children, who are glamorized with glowing skin and backlit, halo-like hair.
The series, entitled "End Times," came about when a little boy burst into tears during a photo session in 2005. Just after the 2004 presidential election, the boy's despair reminded Greenberg of her own sadness that "America had re-elected this idiot," she said in her presentation at the opening reception, referring to President Bush. She decided to keep shooting and titled the image "Four More Years." She continued taking photographs of various children, titling them "Torture," "Misinformation," "Shock" and "Awe," with reference to political misdeeds, or "Armageddon" and "Left Behind," reminiscent of the evangelical Right.
The profound images of pain on the children's faces led to a great deal of scrutiny, and viewers wondered what had caused these children to cry. Greenberg appeared on MSNBC and ABC's "Good Morning America" to respond to accusations of child abuse.
Greenberg, whose daughter is included in the series, said at the Bell Gallery reception that crying was induced by giving each child a lollipop and then taking it away from them, an action she always insisted the child's parent perform. Critics are divided between those who believe Greenberg's work is cruel and those who argue that young children cry frequently for little reason.
Dutch artist van Empel's photographs deal with the ideals of childhood innocence and race. His images consist of frontally-posed children in dense forest scenes wearing antiquated styles of clothing. The colors are vivid and sharp in each piece, and the constructed children that appear wide-eyed and doll-like.
The artist's pieces are composed of around 100 separate photos, which he selects from an inventory of thousands organized in categories such as water, leaves, foreheads, arms and legs. For example, in "World #19" the little girl's green dress is created on a computer from images of draped green velvet. The background is built up from an out-of-focus image of foliage onto which individual leaves and flowers have been applied. Her forehead, eyes and cheeks are digitally tweaked.
This series of van Empel's work began with an image of a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl in braided pigtails surrounded by a wooded forest. While the piece was inspired by memories of van Empel's Dutch childhood, it was criticized as a representation of the idealized Aryan of Nazi Germany, said Jo-Ann Conklin, director of the Bell Gallery, at the opening reception. In response, the artist created a piece of an exaggeratedly dark-skinned girl of a similar age also wearing a white dress, surrounded by the leaves of a tropical forest. This led to a series called "World," featuring only black children as symbols of innocence.
The Edenic nature of his pieces runs counter to a history of slavery and discrimination, making the artist's work both an embrace of the concept of childhood innocence and a critique of racial stereotypes.
"Kids" is an exploration of family life, the Bush administration and race relations, revealing to viewers that images of children are far more than simply cute. The show will be on display at the Bell Gallery until Dec. 21.
