TOOKER GALLERY PRESS RELEASE:

Collodian Portraits
Robert Kalman & Jill Enfield

Tooker Gallery’s current exhibition brings together three compelling bodies of portrait photography by photographers Jill Enfield and Robert Kalman. Both artists used the wet-plate collodian method to produce the images on display. The 150 year old collodian photographic technique was the dominant form of photography from the 1850s through the 1870s. What makes this process remarkable is that these photographers had to coat a glass or metal plate with chemicals, expose it when wet, and develop it within 10 -15 minutes. This requires a portable darkroom if working outdoors. In addition, subjects must remain still for over 8 minutes in order for their images to be captured.
Robert Kalman and Jill Enfield’s photographs evoke the 19th century while remaining contemporary.

For this exhibition, Jill Enfield presents a series 21 intimate portraits of people who immigrated by choice to the United States from countries across the globe. After living in New York City for over 30 years, Jill became intrigued by the stories of friends and strangers who had emigrated and forged identities between cultures. She set out to explore their experience in this series of photographs taken in her neighborhood in downtown NYC.
Also on display is a 40” self-portrait, the first collodion print she produced.

Robert Kalman presents a portrait series entitled ‘In Tomkins Square: A Fleeting Intimacy’.
On display are 35 one-of-a-kind aluminum plates printed using the wet plate collodion method. To capture this series Robert took photos of over 150 strangers he met in Tomkins Square park in lower Manhattan. Each encounter took nearly 20 minutes. The resulting portraits invite viewers to consider how the simple act of being seen, and allowing oneself to be seen, can become a profound expression of intimacy.

Also on exhibit is a remarkable series of intimate portraits taken by Robert Kalman of the people in Larreynaga, Nicaragua. While on a government assignment to Nicaragua in 1991, Robert traveled to the town of Larreynaga where he was deeply moved by the beauty and quiet dignity of the people he encountered there. He returned more than a half a dozen times over the years to create a remarkable series of black and white photographs.

In Tompkins Square: A Fleeting Intimacy
35 Wet Plate Collodian prints

Stopping and photographing a stranger in New York City fulfills an essential need for both of us: the need to experience intimacy.

It is a kind of intimate relationship that holds us together for a brief moment and then vanishes, only to be held forever in an artifact of pure silver.

When I made these portraits in Tompkins Square Park, I used the timeless, 19th century wetplate collodion method. With each person, it required a full encounter of nearly twenty minutes. When completed, as our intimacy closed, I hope that each of us parted feeling seen, and both of us left feeling important.