“There is an old song that says ‘the brushwood we gather- we stack it together, it makes a hut; pull it apart, a field once more.’” Such is our way of thinking- we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.” - Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

What is often thought to be a window onto the world, in A Field Once More, photography returns to its origins of objecthood and neutrality while transforming into an unwieldy, resistant surface volumetrically unfolding off the wall and into space. The unique and diverse array of materials (tape, fiberglass, textiles, paint, aluminum, clay, latex, paper, etc) by these fourteen predominately Bay Area-based photographers not only disrupts the rectangular two-dimensional expectations of the medium, but actively rebels against San Francisco’s history as being a stronghold of straight photography proponents and the fine print tradition. The viewer is asked to look at, around, above, and under photography rather than simply through it. 

In Praise of Shadows places shadows, something often thought as secondary to the object, at the forefront as something to be equally revered and respected. The works in A Field Once More revels in the objecthood of photography, an element also often overlooked and seen as unrelated. Although seemingly contradictory with the sentiments of the text, there is a shared goal in mind: to reclaim the pace of life in a rapidly evolving technological world through a re-engagement with the beauty of the natural and the fleeting. “If light is scarce then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty.” The goal of this exhibition is not to shed light on anything but to experiment with what happens when darkness is intentionally shed on the blinding white gallery walls, ceiling, and floor.