A Parallel Planets piece by Unknown
Parallel Planets presents Leah Netsky
in Unification of the Unusual
Story by Nicole Lane
Mentioned: nature of bodies, pseudo food, beauty in everything
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When I first met Leah Netsky, I was attending Guilford College, a small liberal arts school in North Carolina. I initially viewed her photography at Guilford’s senior thesis show where she presented large color prints--the subject matter varied from landscapes to eggs.
In her series, Organic Elements, Leah focuses on every-day objects that are typically disregarded without truly being discovered or explored--the objects beseech the viewer for a moment of their time. Her diptychs exhibit similarities, for example, between a poppy-seed bagel and a sky full of birds. In her artist statement she writes that her body of work is an “examination of the nature of bodies, and their conversations with each other, of each other, and sometimes against each other”. Two seemingly opposite subjects are conflated and connected leaving the viewer no choice but to bring to light the similarities between “humans, animals, and ordinary objects”.
In addition to exploring disparate entities, Leah also surveys individuals in her life, light/shadows, vast landscapes and my personal favorite, the mass production of food and media. In this series, entitled, Stacks, Leah photographs the acceptance and tolerance that the United States has for our overly processed, chemically treated, food (if we can even call it that anymore). Leah photographs the subject of “meat”, piled high like stacks of paper, appearing plastic and artificial; in one of her images a hole puncher has produced holes in the cold cut to mimic the relation to office supplies. The visual documentation of these pseudo-foods, which are well-persevered and disgustingly rubbery, is organized and strategically displayed to create a successfully commercialesque atmosphere to the series.
Some may say it’s an artists obligation to see the beauty in what the rest of the world may simply pass by. Instinctively, Leah does so with her studies of details and her attention to the ordinary.
Leah Netsky is currently living in Colorado where she works at the Denver Public Library.
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