Jon-Phillip Sheridan:
Fold + Fracture

Jon-Phillip Sheridan: Fold + Fracture
October 28 - November 12, 2011
Exhibition opening: Saturday, November 5, 6-8pm

In conjunction with FotoWeek DC, Heiner Contemporary is pleased to present Fold + Fracture, an exhibition of large-format photography by Jon-Phillip Sheridan. A first look at Sheridan's images introduces the viewer to a kaleidoscopic world of abstract line and shape, but closer inspection reveals the everyday subject matter of the photographs: folded paper and fractured glass. Sheridan imbues the mundane objects he captures with uncommon beauty that transcends their material status, blending abstraction and hyperrealism to create a world that slips between sharp focus and shimmering spectacle.

Lines are integral to Sheridan's work. Together with light and shadow, they complicate the photographic surface and help to create the illusion of three-dimensionality. Squares, triangles, and other geometric shapes crisscross the images, generating movement and activating Sheridan's compositions. These lively forms contribute to an ambiguity of scale, substance, and depth; they both illuminate and obscure the viewer's understanding of the photographs.

Beyond their visual allure, Sheridan's works serve a journalistic purpose. Paper folds reminiscent of abandoned attempts at origami and broken glass shards create irregular and beguiling patterns that allude to the history of the objects documented. Glimpses of a table or studio floor, often found along the edges of the photographs, offer visual vignettes that bind the images to specific moments in time and space. Simultaneously, traces of the artist's hand - a magnified thumbprint or itinerant eyelash - provide insight into the artist's working process.

Jon-Phillip Sheridan graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art, MD (BA Fine Arts, 2000), completed the Aunspaugh Fellowship Seminar at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (2004) and received an MFA in Photography and Film at Virginia Commonwealth University (2011). Recent solo shows include Direct Object, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA (2011) and Photographs, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Richmond, VA. Sheridan has received numerous awards, including the Graduate Research Grant, VCU School of the Arts (2011) and the Editorial Prize, Photography.Book.Now (2009).