New Time: Nov 18 from 6:30-7:30
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Our November Third Thursdays talk features award winning and an MCCC Photography alum, Lang, just back from his residency in Estonia, along with documentary photographer, Chris Facey whose work has been included in the New York Times and The New Yorker magazine. Join us in the gallery or on Zoom on November 18th
More About the Artists
Kyle Lang
Lang is a dakroom photographer, fascinated by the potentials of this unique medium. Unlike other visual arts, photography records something that has once existed. It is not an interpretation but an evidential impression. Photography, however, still falls short at documentation with absolute fidelity. These two properties make photography a contingency – neither completely true nor false. Embracing this core principle of photography, Lang works within this liminal space of contingency, creating photographs to speak about philosophy rather than to document.
Lang – When I was 18 I was offered a job to work as a Nikon Representative in Princeton, New Jersey. At the time I was attending university and had to make a choice between the job and working towards a photography degree. I went with Nikon.
I stayed with them for one year before moving to New Zealand in 2016. Here is where my passion for landscape photography began, and where I learned that analog photography is right for me. The following year, my visa expired and I flew to Southeast Asia where I began to think more seriously about which direction I want to move in. Art and traveling were two things I refused to live without.
So upon my return to New Jersey, I began working at Triumph Brewery. A spent a few years saving money and growing in other interests such as classical piano, cooking, fishing, and alternative photography processes. Each year I took a trip to a new country, first to Iceland in 2018, then to Norway in 2019.
The travels and exploration of interests allowed me to narrow my focus when I returned to university in the spring of 2020. During my first semester back, I applied to an artist grant intended for painters. The way I use light in the darkroom is similar to that of applying paint, so I decided to apply. Now I am the first photographer to ever receive this grant.
The summer of 2020, I customized a van and left on a road trip across the United States with the grant. I lived on the road for three months, and began my final semester from my van. I completed my classes and was invited to be the artist in residence at TYPA, a historic print and paper museum in Tartu, Estonia.
While there, I was commissioned for an environmental project with the Estonian University of Life Sciences, by traveling around Estonia and collecting images. These works went on to be exhibited at Aparaaditehas then relocated to the university where they will hang permanently. At the same time, I had a second solo exhibition in Aparaaditehas, Liminal Space.
Chris Facey
” Chris Facey is a documentary and portrait photographer based in Raleigh, NC. Chris creates images that are powerful yet tender. Inspired by the works of Gordon Parks and W. Eugene Smith, he documents communities with softness and allows space for emotional depth, while still covering hard-hitting issues such as the racial injustices in civil rights to combating stereotypes amongst the black community as well as attempting to bring more awareness to women’s safety. With both vigor and a trained eye, Chris has been making work centering and combating the highly flawed portrayal of the black community and by making images of black love, black joy, black strength, black culture and the beauty of it all.”
Being a father himself, Chris has been working on his #DadDutyProject, which focuses on debunking the myth of absentee fathers in the Black and Brown community as well as his ” Being Careful: Carrying More Than A Burden” project, where he hopes to bring awareness and change to the lack of Women Safety.
A School of Visual Arts BFA graduate and an Army veteran, Chris is on a strong path to success with his photo documentary projects which has landed him opportunities to be featured in publications such as The New Yorker, New York Magazine , The Cut & The New York Times.
Website: www.cocobuttershutter.comInstagram: www.instagram.com/coco.butter.shutter
Third Thursdays is a monthly artist talk from the JKC Gallery. This season’s shows will all be in-person and virtual simultaneously. It is curated and moderated by artists, Heather Palacek and Habiyb Shu’Aib, and hosted by Michael Chovan-Dalton, Director of the JKC Gallery. The talks were started by Palacek and Shu’Aib as a platform for artists to showcase their work to the Trenton and the larger regional community and quickly reached an audience from New York to Philadelphia. With the introduction of hybrid virtual and in-person shows we now have regional artists and artists from across the country and our audience reach is global.
-Michael Chovan-Dalton / JKC Gallery Director