A show of photos about “cross cultural encounters” and one in which a ceramist comes to terms with his mother’s death last February are on view at Individual Artists of Oklahoma. Showing their work are Eyakem Gulilat, a Norman artist originally from Ethiopia, and Howard Koerth, an Oklahoma City artist who is a faculty member at Rose State College in Midwest City.
Gulilat combines photographs of himself and a second subject, both wearing Ethiopian garb, with a landscape filling the space between them, in his well-composed but understated 24-by-50-inch triptychs.
Goats seem to wander between the two figures, connecting them in some way, in “06” from Gililat’s series, for example, as do an open aluminum-hued travel suitcase, a dark bag and a black chicken in “05.”
Snow relates two white-clad figures to each other in “04,” and a dark dog wanders across the scene in front of a tripod, perhaps waiting for a camera to be placed on it, in his “03.”
Gulilat said he first photographs his subject, before having the subject photograph him, after which he photographs the space between them.
“The result is a collaborative triptych which blurs the boundaries between American and Ethiopian, photographer and subject,” said Gililat, who received his master’s degree at the University of Oklahoma in 2010.
Describing the photographs in which both subjects wear Ethiopian clothes as “a metaphor for the exchange of ideas,” Gulilat said he assumes the role of an explorer of the American West in the triptychs.
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