Three Hands' Play

Trisha Holt

Will Rahilly

Lindsay Preston Zappas

Small Editions is pleased to present Three Hands’ Play, a group exhibition of new works by three American Artists. With playful studio practices, each of these three artists uses the medium of photography as a method to embrace and defend against the influence of digital imagery today. With the changes in the way images are seen, used and processed, the effect of digital media is greater than ever. Digital imagery is present in almost every facet of daily life.

Detroit based artist Trisha Holt looks to the tradition of still life and portraiture within her work. Setting up a color background sweep in her studio, Holt arranges simple groupings of objects and images into powerful aesthetic experiences that evoke a digital colorspace and flatness. Playing with the physical properties of the photographic print, Holt adheres the images directly to the wall introducing a physical, topographical, site specific layer to the work.

Will Rahilly uses studio photography in a different way. Utilizing old in-camera, behind-the-scenes techniques of smoke and mirrors, Rahilly creates dramatic environments that appear to be computer generated. These hyper-polished images reveal themselves in the uncanny valley between the digital and physical—looking through Rahilly’s dramatic lighting, the details of the abstract forms and colors give way to their mundane origins.

The work of Lindsay Preston Zappas uses surface and materiality in a different sense. Beginning with photographic imagery, Preston Zappas creates photo silk screens that are used similarly to the Photoshop Pattern Stamp tool. The artist’s playful mix of this