Description:
Black and white photograph of three young women in bathing suits laying in shallow water. The central figure floats on her back extended diagonally across the visual field as she relaxes with her eyes closed. The other two women are positioned on their knees floating on their bellies at the top right of the photograph touching and looking at the central figure as she floats on her back in the water.
Label Text:
Excerpted label text from the Curatorial Fellowship exhibition “Eyes Are For Asking: Narratives in Photography,” March 24 – May 1, 2016:
MacNeil’s photograph evokes a sense of intimacy as well as, perhaps, nostalgia for summers past. The central figure in the photograph consumes the space with her sheer presence, but also suggests absence in the way that she floats, eyes closed. She seems at once enthralled in a moment of summer’s bliss and drifting listlessly like a lifeless body in the water. Through tight framing and a shallow depth of field, MacNeil invites us to participate directly in this intimate space. This event might remind us of our own complex engagement with our childhoods. The photograph’s suggestion that memory is not just visual, but also visceral or bodily speaks to its strength. -Gretchen Halverson (M.A. Art History ‘16) and Procheta Mukherjee Olson (M.F.A. Studio Art ‘17)
Tags:
girls; swimming; leisure; families Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=UM+1978.74 |
