Victoria Mara Heilweil
Photographers Barbara Boissevain, Charlotta María Hauksdóttir and Victoria Mara Heilweil recontextualize urban and natural landscapes into abstract photographs. Boissevain and Hauksdóttir have a personal connection to the landscapes they capture while Heilweil focuses on the remnants of everyday detritus. Boissevain, a Silicon Valley native, uses photography to highlight environmental issues in the region. Her South Bay Salt Flat Restoration Project documents the epic transformation of salt ponds back to their natural state. For Hauksdóttir, personal identity is inextricably tied to the overlapping environments she constructs. In her Topography Study series, Hauksdóttir layers cutouts of the landscape to reference both landforms created over time and the interplay of man and nature. Taking a slightly different approach, Heilweil engages with mundane, urban terrain in her images. Her series In Plain Sight is an archive of found still lifes that explore the discovery of a moment, a spontaneous formation, or a gesture happened upon while wandering the streets.
The vivid use of abstract visual language connects all three photographers. Boissevain’s abstractions arise from aerial views as seen from the vantage point of a two-person helicopter, allowing her to uncover evidence of toxicity that is normally hidden when on the ground. Hauksdóttir uses process to abstract images of her estranged homeland of Iceland. Heilweil’s formal compositions seek a tension between the grotesque and the beautiful, the subject and the treatment.
For more information about Victoria Heilweil, please visit her website.