Light Work presents “Caribbean Dreams ” by Brooklyn-based photographer Samantha Box. Opening Thursday, Sept. 1, in Light Work’s Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery, this solo exhibition is a series of complex studio still lifes of personal, familial and regionally-referenced objects, heirlooms, fruits, vegetables and plants, onto which Samantha Box collages family and vernacular images, fruit stickers, packaging and receipts. A departure from earlier methods and subject matter, these experimental and unpredictable constructions embody Box’s exploration of multiple diasporic Caribbean histories and identities.

“Caribbean Dreams” runs through Thursday, Oct. 13. The reception with Samantha Box and her gallery talk takes place on Thursday, Sept. 1, at 6 p.m. in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery. The reception is free and open to the public, with light refreshments. Find Light Work in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center at 316 Waverly Ave. in Syracuse.

Construction #1(1), 2018 (Photo by Samantha Box, courtesy of Light Work)

How can artwork be risky? In artistic practice—as opposed to the way that art-speak often reduces “risk” to non-meaning and/or applies the term ubiquitously—risk is often about expectations. This meaning is front and center in Samantha Box’s new solo exhibition. In conversation with exhibition curator Dan Boardman during a studio visit, Box reflected on her new body of work. “I started to really appreciate risk in the last couple of years of this work, when I started to want to make pictures that were going into spaces that felt strange, wild and uncharted,” Box says. “I had to give myself permission to make pictures that made sense only to me—a total risk.” With “Caribbean Dreams,” Box deftly traverses this edge, expanding her approach to making images and to her new subject matter. This allows her to blend personal, familial and relevant regional materials into raw, experimental and unpredictable compositions. She fills each image with discovery, intuition and restless innovations that explore and overlay multiple diasporic Caribbean histories and identities.

Samantha Box’s exhibition catalog, “Contact Sheet 218,” and signed limited-edition fine prints titled “Tropical Family Portrait, 2020” will be available for purchase after the reception and in Light Work’s online shop.

Samantha Box (portrait courtesy of the artist)

Samantha Box is a Jamaican-born, Bronx-based photographer. She has exhibited work at the DePaul Art Museum, Houston Center of Photography, the ICP Museum and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Box has been an artist-in-residence at both the Center of Photography at Woodstock and Light Work. She received an M.F.A. in advanced photographic studies from the International Center of Photography/Bard College (2019) and a certificate in photojournalism and documentary studies from the International Center of Photography (2006). She has twice received the NYFA Fellowship in Photography (2010 and 2022)

Light Work hosts supplemental programming in its gallery spaces to support exhibition-related events, conversations and tours. With great excitement, we announce the “2022 Light Work Grants in Photography: Carlton Daniel, Jr. Lacey McKinney, Sarah Phyllis Smith” will be on view concurrently in Light Work’s Hallway Gallery.

Find Light Work’s galleries in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 9 p.m. Light Work closes on all major holidays. Contact Light Work to schedule a guided tour of the galleries or the Light Work Lab. Follow Light Work on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. For general information, please visit lightwork.org, call 315.443.1300, or email info@lightwork.org.

Parking Limited metered parking is available on Waverly Avenue and paid parking is available in the Booth Parking Garage. Visit parking.syr.edu for more information on parking and directions to the galleries.

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