Nina Hauser
October 17 – November 25, 2017
Opening Reception:
Friday, October 20, 2017, 7 – 9 pm
Artist’s Statement :
All that you see here are composites of images I’ve taken in India over the past three years. What compelled me to pursue this body of work was an encounter with a Brahmin woman. She had watched me while I was photographing a woman sweeping away leaves from the grass with a little bundle of twigs, and was scornful of my interest in a Dalit or “untouchable” woman.
Her reaction was the spark for this work. I began photographing women performing menial jobs such as working on road crews and sweeping up garbage. These women were the most striking and beautiful to me not because they were dressed in colorful, beautiful saris but because of their dignity and conscientiousness. They were such a startling contrast to the work they were doing.
Animals always touch me deeply. There were “sacred” cows lying in the roadside dirt, standing in the middle of always-heavy traffic, waiting patiently in the hot sun with hooves that needed tending; goats and dogs, hungry and emaciated picking at garbage. I couldn’t rescue the animals of India but I discovered a way to help myself feel better about them.
In my photographs, I began to move people and animals from where I found them into my own version of Indian Mughal paintings, using either copies of paintings or my own photographs. Mughal paintings are a particular style of south Asian painting, usually done in miniature, during the time of the Mughal Empire of the 16th to 18th centuries. My subjects are far from those in the vivid scenes of Hindu epics, mystical legends and courtly life usually depicted in this type of art. But my subjects are just as deserving of lush surroundings, and my people and animals just as noble and valuable.
All the photography was done with an iPhone 7 Plus, edited on an iPad, resized on my computer and printed on archival paper with an Epson P800 printer, each in a limited edition of 20 prints..
— Nina Hauser
Selected work by other artists
showing in this exhibition
Selected work from our WSG owner/artists, and the following visiting artists:
Carol Hanna, Yvonne Pappas, Helen Gotlib, Janet Kelman, Kristin Hermanson, Marlee Hoffman, Idelle Hammond-Sass, Maria Ruggiero, Martha Rock Keller, Carlye Crisler, Jill Stefani Wagner, Marsha Rae Wright
