Hannah Runnels – Staff Writer
Photographers Lydia Panas, Martha Ketterer, and Jean Sousa are all currently on display until May 4 at the Southeast Museum of Photography in the exhibition “Portraiture: A Formal Approach.”
During a recent reception for the show, SMP Director James Pearson introduced Lydia Panas, saying, “’Portraiture: A Formal Approach’ addresses the role of the photographer and the ways in which the composition and capture of portrait photographs can still utilize many aspects of formalism developed by painters some 600 years ago — symmetry, balance, color, shape and in the case of our speaker today, the marriage of beautiful imagery and high concept.
“Her studio practices explore our collective social relationship to women. Using a variety of approaches, her work is attentive to the psyche and what lies beneath the surface in an attempt to pose questions about who we are and what we want to become.”Panas was born in the United States while her Greek parents were studying medicine. Shortly after she turned 2 years old, they moved the family back to Greece and then returned to the states when Panas was 5.
“I once read that making art is about being caught between the desire to express yourself and the fear of being exposed,” Panas told the reception audience.
“The two opposing feelings can be found in my work. In part this comes from my immigrant status and having moved around frequently as a child. I found myself in kindergarten without the English language to communicate. The differences in culture and the swiftness and timing of the moves instilled in me a sense that I had to watch people very closely and I became very good at reading people so I could fit in,” she said.
Seemingly this way of processing aids in Panas’ ability to connect with her subjects and the viewer. In the summer of 1995 Panas created her “Italian Series” when she was pregnant with her third child and was carrying the weight of finding out her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She believes this is when her work became more serious.
Panas said, “I used my kids in the landscape we were in as vehicles to portray what I was feeling that summer. It was strange knowing of my father’s impending death while carrying a new life.”
After dealing in mostly still life from 2000 to 2005 — in which she created an obscure series photographing chocolate, lint and her hair — to communicate her own pleasures, family and evidence of aging and time, Panas decided too much of her time was being consumed by the darkroom. So in 2005, she tried color film. The first color photograph she made was of her children and their cousin who stood for a color test while they outside in natural summer light.
“I was fascinated to see how they lined up and how they took certain positions in relation to one another and to me and a perceived audience. When I got the film back I was surprised by the results. The image had a kind of tension and projected a variety of feelings and attitudes. I always think there is so much information to mine when people are interacting,” explained Panas.
After that, she began inviting others to her 70-acre farm in Pennsylvania to be photographed. Those subjects were instructed to bring other people with whom they shared a long history, so most included family members. She observed how they interacted with each other and arranged themselves in front of her. Today, the basis of all her work revolves around home, love and trust.
Her latest series, “Falling From Grace,” combines portraiture and still life in simple, yet odd, juxtaposition. For a year she invited models into her studio where she presented them with a variety of produce and food for them to pose with. After creating 8×10 prints and viewing them spread across her floor, she realized series was influenced heavily by 17th century Dutch paintings. It was all there — the emphasis on subjects’ expressions, a dark background, natural lighting and classic simplicity
“I see my photographs as a conversation between the individual or group that I’m photographing and myself. In this series I’m photographing a sense of boundaries and borders. The emotions coming from the subject are unclear, there is both a strong connection with the viewer and at the same time an inability to connect. That creates distance and uncertainty between the subject and viewer, so the connection becomes a contradiction. Seen together the series presents a feast, the players all bring food to the table. but nourishment is not assured.”
Another of Panas’ series is “Ghost Portraits,” which are reminiscent of her father who had died. She found inspiration for that throughout her property in the fields and trees and created images of ghostly fabrics draped across the land that held memories and teachings of her father.
“There is almost nothing I’d rather do than look at someone through the lens of my camera. It’s a way of getting close. The photograph is a record of our connection. It’s always intimate, intense and present. I’m super interested in the moment of a meeting, the question of how we will be met, with love, with indifference, with contempt?,” she asked.
In recent years, Panas began working exclusively with women, beginning with her series “Longing In Black” and continuing most recently with “Sleeping Beauty.”
With those subjects she said, “I’m exploring the contradictions and challenges that women face in a world struggling to embrace their power.”
Panas’ work, exhibited along with that of Ketterer and Sousa, is an intuitive and creative approach to portraiture on view at the SMP until beginning of May.