Untitled

Sharon Lockhart is a photographer and filmmaker who graduated MFA from the College of Design, Pasadena in 1993. She lives and works in Los Angeles. She has an extensive exhibition and film festival history in Europe, the US and Japan from the mid 1990s. In many of her photographs and films she has focused on the exploration of youth. Her approach to these scenes is detached, creating a documentary film appearance. Lockhart strives for a combination of fact and fiction to create a version of the quiet yet powerful independent photographic image. Her last series ‘Pine Flat’ 2005 was seen at the Biennale of Sydney 2006.

‘Untitled’ 2007 was shot at the Los Angeles Public Library and relates to a portrait by August Sander of two blind girls reading Braille. Lockhart has re-staged this image in order to meditate on social relations and those who can never see themselves, alternative representational systems (Braille), time, and the relationship between portraiture and architecture. The shallow space which Lockhart depicts in this single image is common in much of her work. The box like structure of this space throws into high relief the figures of the two girls. Their existence in this space is as compelling as it is inscrutable.