dayoutlast is a record of my direct engagement with mostly contemporary art, mostly Los Angelean.

As this blog has evolved since its 2010 inception, so has my perspective. What I once perceived as central within the investigation was what was central, literally, within the photographic frame that I shared here. While still an important consideration, such thinking has also given way to more peripheral considerations, ones also accompanied occasionally by text (written manifestation of thought) and the oscillations between them. What's missing here are larger unknowns surrounding issues of presentation and representation; the amount of time and space it actually takes to accomplish such first-hand observations; and the quandaries between documentation and interpretation.

Despite my attempt to communicate here with image and text what is essential in some respect about the artwork, neither representation should ever be considered a substitution for the primary viewing experience. Of course, occasionally there are exceptions.

Most of the time, these posts are merely remnants---residual fragments---from my last day out.

Saturday, July 8, 2017

Evan Trine "New Photographic Portraits" @ Roberts & Tilton


Self-Portrait (Naked in a  Bathtub), 2017
Unique archival pigment print
40 x 40 inches



This latest offering of the blurred line between painting and photography leaves me wondering not only about its resurgence of colored monochrome but also about like artists with like interest. For a moment, I thought I was looking at a Phil Chang exhibition, matters compounded by the fact that a collaborative project with Chang (see previous post here) was in the adjacent project space of the very same gallery. That said, you would have to look for Chang elsewhere (see here) to see whatI mean.  Confusions aside, what does it mean to distill a human image into a single pixel and meditate its specificities into a generalized, all-over, largely unified, mid-tone zone?  A celebration of human life or a dirge about its passing? Given the grim tones, I suspect the latter.  For, these are not the colors typically associated with bursting, energetic life.


Self Portrait (In My Mickey Sweatshirt), 2017
Unique archival pigment print
40 x 40 inches



Photography's search to find itself in real space having been displaced within the virtual spaces bred of digital technology is an interesting terrain to explore and these works seem to do that, at the very least even conjuring the thought which is sometimes good enough.


Portrait (Erin and Danny at Christmas Party), 2017
Unique archival pigment print
40 x 40 inches



Like being underwater unable to see "out" unable to assess the temperature of the water, hence immersion, but on a conceptual level more than anything manifestly physical.Unique yet equal.  All things equalized. My own visage as a viewer held as a ghostly reflection in relation to the person represents. Is this an attempt at immersive photo installation or is it just me? Or just a happy accident of all three...?




Portrait (Eve and Nolan Sitting on the Roots of A Giant Bay Fig), 2017
Unique archival pigment print
40 x 40 inches



Portrait (Dean and Marcia Giving a Speech), 2017
Unique archival pigment print
40 x 40 inches
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