Photograph exhibit showcases town nightlife

The clubs and bars frequented by students and Chapel Hill residents are being seen through different eyes, thanks to photographer Gail Goers.

“Before Hours,” a month-long photography show that started Sunday at the Horace Williams House, features the solo work of emerging artist Goers as she illuminates spaces often overlooked while in plain sight: the Chapel Hill entertainment circuit.

The images are set in the time before the venues open their doors for the night, allowing the viewer to focus on the spaces themselves. Goers said the vibrancy of the lighting and the mood of the compositions humanize and personalize the space in a way that tells a story without using images of people.

“I’m never really interested in photographing people, and I was just wondering about this space that’s meant to hold people — what does that look like empty, and what does that mean? What is left when the people are gone?” Goers said.

“I felt like a lot of stories that come up on the walls and the markings — I just felt that they were very touched spaces.”

Tama Hochbaum, Goers’ liaison to Preservation Chapel Hill and co-chairwoman for the art committee, said the committee voted unanimously to feature Goers’ pieces.

“There’s this sense that people have just been there or will just be there,” Hochbaum said.

“They are just really kind of exquisite examples of somewhat seedy places, almost — back rooms or dusty floors — but they just contain almost jewel-like colors when they’re colorful. They’re quite powerful.”

After deciding to go to graduate school for art therapy in 2005, Goers started taking prerequisite classes in the art department at UNC, during which she enrolled in an introductory photography class.

From there, her passions changed and she studied photography as a student and as a darkroom assistant to UNC art professors Jeff Whetstone in 2007 and elin o’Hara slavick from 2009 to 2011.

Hochbaum said the Horace Williams show is basically Goers’ first major exhibition. But there is a legacy for emerging artists to take flight after their first show at the house.

“So many of our artists have gone on to really big art careers, and we’re very, very proud of it — that we’re there to assist local people move on in their career if they’re an emerging artist,” said Nerys Levy, the Preservation Chapel Hill Arts Committee co-chairwoman.

“You can usually spot an emerging artist who’s not going to be emerging for very long.”

Goers’ large form photographs are printed through dye sublimation on aluminum, a relatively new technique in which the photographs are printed directly onto the metal instead of on paper or canvas.

“I think the study of the clubs is a metaphor for everybody to get out and look a little more about where they are and to be a little more curious about their surroundings and to have respect for all space as a potential art space,” Levy said.

“One can add dignity to anything, and I think she adds dignity to these spaces to make them stand alone as spaces to be respected in their own right.”

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