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Fred Beans Gallery, Doylestown Upstate New York-based photographer Suzanne Opton is interested in the individual behind the uniform. Soldier, on view in the Betz Gallery, was an exhibition of photographic portraits of military men and women at Fort Drum in New York shortly after their completion of at least 100 days overseas in Afghanistan or Iraq. Using a 4 x 5 view camera, Opton devised several strategies for these portraits, including traditional views of face and upper torso as well as more unusual poses in which each soldier is asked to lay his or her head down on a table. Opton's images sometimes include spouses or other soldiers, and often focus on close-ups with heads and hands nearly filling the whole frame. These postures provide a vulnerable look at the faces of individuals who have literally been on the front lines. As Opton expressed, "In making these portraits of soldiers, I simply wanted to look in the face of someone who'd seen something unforgettable." Opton's work has been exhibited internationally, and is featured in permanent collections of the Bibliotèque Nationale de France in Paris; the Musée de'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland; and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Her photography has appeared in a variety of publications including Orion, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek and Fortune. Opton teaches at the International Center of Photography and the Cooper Union.
Contact Sheet 136, a 48-page paperback catalog of Opton's photographs, is available for $10.00 in the Museum Shop. Published by Light Work, the catalog includes an essay by renowned photography critic Vicki Goldberg. Soldier is on view at The Michener at the same time as a complementary exhibit, Fire and Ice, which presents Marine Warrant Officer Michael Fay's drawings and watercolors. "These two powerful exhibitions present very different points of view about the experiences of our military," said Brian H. Peterson, Senior Curator at the Michener Art Museum. "One artist sees war from the inside—literally from the trenches—while the other artist contemplates the effects of war as etched in the faces of the returning warriors. Together, these insightful and heartfelt images remind us both of the reality of our wars and the humanity of those who are called upon to fight our wars." Listen to a WHYY 91FM Arts and Culture report on Soldier and Fire and Ice. A L S O S E E
Images:
Top left:
Suzanne Opton, Soldier: Myers—364 Days in Iraq, 2004,
silver gelatin print on paper,
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