Laura Letinsky (b. Winnipeg, Canada, 1962)
Laura Letinsky is interested in how cameras frame our world. What shapes our reading of what is photographed? Is the image truthful, or is it interpreted through a lens of perceptions and assumptions? Within Diaries of Home, three of Letinsky’s earliest series are exhibited together, revealing the complexities surrounding our understanding of home. In her series Venus Inferred, 1989‒96, Letinsky photographs intimate encounters between couples in a domestic setting. The pairs, including Letinsky and her then-husband, are caught in fleeting moments, surrounded by their possessions. The images illuminate both the comforts and tensions that arise when one is in close proximity to a partner, whether physically or emotionally.
After Venus Inferred, Letinsky shifted gears, focusing on still-lifes. This genre has always fascinated the artist, from her first exposure to seventeenth-century Dutch paintings. In painting and photography, still-lifes afford an opportunity to reflect on life, morality, decadence, and necessity. Like the Old Masters, Letinsky meticulously constructs her photographic vignettes, yet her images possess a lived-in, natural quality, documenting what remains after someone has occupied a space.
In her body of work entitled Hardly More Than Ever, 1997‒2004, tightly cropped images of a dirty kitchen become the artist’s focus: strewn dirty bowls and utensils, sliced peaches, and a roll of paper towels stand next to the sink. All are familiar scenes from nightly dinners or parties. Yet a subtle tension arises with the observation that this culinary detritus is precariously placed, often tantalizingly close the edge of the counter, on the precipice of falling. Letinsky utilizes the camera’s ability to freeze a moment in time to force the viewer to pause to consider the fleeting nature of life amidst the aftermath of a shared meal.
Unlike the previous two series, images from the series somewhere, somewhere, 2005‒07, are nearly devoid of life’s refuse. Letinsky photographed vacated homes that had not yet been cleaned prior to the arrival of their new tenants. Echoes of the previous inhabitants fill the space like friendly ghosts: we see left-behind lamps and wall art against spackled walls. Her framing, coupled with the lack of household objects, transforms the rooms into abstractions, creating images reminiscent of color-field paintings. Together the three series explore the lifecycles of a home, from a familiar and intimate space filled with domestic trappings to a shell of its former self, now vacant except for the memories of its past inhabitants. By continually stripping away housewares and personal touches Letinsky begs the question: what makes a home?
Laura Letinsky, Untitled (Rita and Blair – rubbing eyes), 1996. Archival pigment print. 17 × 22 inches. Courtesy of the Artist and Yancey Richardson, New York. © Laura Letinsky