Peripheral Vision

Amy Ritchie Johnson curated Peripheral Vision as a fond farewell after her departure from the position of Associate Director at Candela Books + Gallery  which she held during its first years of operation. The exhibition essay is integral to the exhibition itself, describing her interest in exploring:

“a trend in contemporary [straight] photography growing in the long shadow of the traditional ‘view of reality as an exotic prize to be tracked down and captured by the diligent hunter-with-a-camera,’ a subtler approach to be postulated in this essay, as well as exemplified in the exhibition, Peripheral Vision. This trend could also be considered a way for photography—photography that calls itself art most especially—to transcend the longstanding exploitation aesthetic, the reigning conceptualist modes of conceiving art, and to transcend the entrenched notions of image- and art-making that succumb to the idea of art or life as spectacle to be consumed. This fresh use of the photograph goes beyond seeing to perceiving, goes beyond concept to perception.”

Ritchie Johnson has chosen three artists, William W Douglas III, Justin James Reed, and Burt Ritchie, “each approaching their creative practice very differently, but presented together their artwork expertly exemplifies a perceptual photography as they engage a more contemplative approach to image-making and image-dissemination.”