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<\/a>‘School Photos 3,\u2019 one of the 21 large-scale photographs from UToledo Art Professor Deborah Orloff\u2019s solo exhibit, \u2018Elusive Memory,\u2019 on display through mid-December in a Russian art gallery.<\/p><\/div>\n
Orloff said she was invited to show her work at Space Place Gallery after its curator saw a feature devoted to \u201cElusive Memory\u201d in a respected photography journal, Aint-Bad. And after seeing her Space Place Gallery exhibit, curators at the Nizhny Tagil Museum of Fine Arts invited her to have a solo exhibition at their museum in April.<\/p>\n
Having her artwork exhibited in Russia naturally provides creative satisfaction, but it also yields personal significance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know very little about my ancestors other than the fact that most of them were originally from Russia, so having a solo exhibition of work that features images of my family there is especially meaningful to me,\u201d she said. \u201cIn a sense, it brings my family history full circle having these photographs exhibited in Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cElusive Memory\u201d evolved from the UToledo art professor\u2019s nearly lifelong fascination with family photos, which she has collected for decades, and in family pictures that were \u201cabandoned, neglected and forgotten\u201d in her parents\u2019 basement.<\/p>\n
\u201cInadvertently exposed to water, heat and humidity, the pictures have undergone a powerful transformation; they\u2019re surprisingly beautiful and mysterious in their present state of decay,\u201d Orloff said. \u201cBy making high-resolution photographs, and enlarging them to almost 4 feet long, my work allows viewers to see the incredible surface details (barely noticeable to the naked eye in the original objects) that make each of the damaged pictures distinctive.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>‘Possible Ancestors 2.’<\/p><\/div>\n
The result, she said, is an ironic twist that jolts the-once generic images with artistic identity and imbues them with the deep-seated recognition that memories, like the photos on exhibit, are subject to change and decay.<\/p>\n
The photographs also serve a dual purpose: a canvas for Orloff and a point of entry for the audience, one that\u2019s familiar even if the reimagined images are not.<\/p>\n
\u201cFamily albums are archives that provide glimpses of the past and trigger memories of specific people and events,\u201d she said. But \u201cmemory is certainly selective; no one remembers everything. But of the things we do recall, how much do we actually remember from experience, as opposed to incidents we\u00a0think<\/em>\u00a0we remember because we\u2019ve seen the photographs so many times?\u201d<\/p>\n Orloff\u2019s work has been exhibited extensively nationwide and in the last two years has received significant exposure overseas, including an internationally competitive group exhibition traveling throughout the United Kingdom, as well as shows in Hungary and Israel<\/a>. She also has a new work debut in a European exhibition this winter.<\/p>\n