Silver Eye Center for Photography

Through January 10, 2015
Various times

From iconic Hollywood films such as The Wizard of Oz to modern novels like Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again to countless songs and plays, the concept of home—both as a fixed place and a fluid entity—has occupied the creative process of artists across all eras and mediums.

A new exhibition opening at Silver Eye Center for Photography is taking a fresh new look at the timeless age-old subject of home. Close to Home, on view at the South Side-based gallery from October 24th through January 10th, features work by seven contemporary artists from across the US—including three from right here in Pittsburgh.

What does home mean to you? Likely it is a mash-up of the place where you currently live, the place where you used to live and the place where you grew up, blended with your feelings about your family, your neighborhood, your city or town, and your memories and experiences. To some, home is a familiar and comforting place, while to others, it may be a complex place of mixed emotions.

Featured artists—who all explore and share their own versions of home—are: Martha Fleming-Ives (Brooklyn, NY); Cameron Gibson (Chicago, IL); Andrew Hammerand (Boston, MA); Lisa Lindvay (Chicago, IL); Jake Reinhart (Pittsburgh, PA); Elizabeth A. Rudnick (Pittsburgh, PA); and Justin Visnesky (Pittsburgh, PA).

Using the medium of photography to examine different notions of home as a “physical place with deep emotional connections,” the artists on view express a wide spectrum of feelings toward and about home—from tenderness and anxiety, to love and heartache. From family portraits and landscapes, to personal histories and experimental documentary, participating artists also explore a diverse range of subject matter and themes, such as identity, time, memory, anxiety, intimacy, family, place-making, mental illness, civic pride, nostalgia and daily life.

Silver Eye’s new executive director, David Oresick—who began his post in July 2014—teamed up with Silver Eye board member Dylan Vitone, who is an associate professor in Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design, to organize the exhibition.

Jake Reinhart, View from Polish Hill, March 2014. Courtesy of the artist.

Jennifer has worked at the Mattress Factory, Brooklyn Museum of Art and Dahesh Museum of Art and is co-author of Pittsburgh Signs Project: 250 Signs of Western Pennsylvania. She also is co-coordinator of Handmade Arcade. Musically, she is in a band called The Garment District and is a founding member of Brooklyn's The Ladybug Transistor.