ANGELA STRASSHEIM
Pause
October 20 through December 22, 2006


Angela Strassheim
November 15, 2006
Angela Strassheim's large-format, dreamily saturated color photos revisit the unsettling period between childhood and adolescence through crafted domestic tableaux. In one photo, Strassheim captures a bikini-topped Lolita reading lazily in a sun-splashed garden; in another, a father awkwardly holds his little girl while sitting in a doctor's waiting room. Strassheim's approach to composition breaks down the images into disparate parts, accentuating the sense that her subjects are isolated by their uncertain stage of development, while the eerie crispness of her focus dispels any sense that these are documentary scenarios, despite their realism. As the girls fail to sync with their formally constructed environments, the tension lends itself to metaphors for the relationship between individuals and societal prescription. (JG)