From now until Nov. 24, the Horace Williams House will be displaying the unique photograms and experimental photography of recent UNC graduates Jenny Burton and Greg Halloran.
Halloran’s work captures the movement of water in black and white ripples. Burton’s work uses soft and saturated colors to suggest vibrations and ambiguous objects.
Tama Hochbaum, art committee co-chairwoman of Preservation Chapel Hill, said the work of both artists is more radical than work from past exhibits shown at the Horace Williams House.
“It’s a fascinating thing that the exhibit is in a historical home but the images are absolutely new and they blend very well,” Hochbaum said.
Hochbaum also said Burton and Halloran are the first recent alumni to be featured in the house. She said the preservation society, which selects the artists to be exhibited in the house, is beginning to establish a relationship with the University’s art department.
When Burton and Halloran were in elin o’Hara slavick’s conceptual photography class, Hochbaum, a friend of slavick’s, invited the class to her home to view her own work.
“So there was this wonderful situation where these two were at my house, and I was in fact, at that moment, making a flier to ask for applications to the program,” Hochbaum said. “So I encouraged them all to apply.”
Burton and Halloran decided to send in their work as one submission on slavick’s suggestion, and the committee immediately liked their work, Hochbaum said.
“(Their work) is powerful and beautiful and very painterly,” Hochbaum said. “The artists seem beyond their age, they seem advanced, like someone who is in their 30s or 40s. The images are wise, almost.”
