“Stop and Look” Review of photography show by Sarah J. Schoenhaar at Absolutely Art

I don’t attend as many art shows as I used to. It’s a little like open mics: you tend to go more when you are making art or poetry, music or whatever, because of the inherent debt you feel to your peers – I come to yours, you come to mine. It isn’t as literal as that, (no one really keeps track on their belt or bed) but somehow we all know that things won’t keep flowing unless we buy other artists' art, or albums, or at least show our faces at the often agonizing openings that litter the weekly listings on The Daily Page. Because I recently had a well-attended show (“Gratitude” at Escape Coffee Gallery last month), I am especially feeling as if I need to get back out there and give back to the art world. Plus, it’s just inspiring to see others' work.

This time it was easy. I wandered into Absolutely Art, always a sure choice and one of my favorite galleries in all of Madison. It’s not just my favorite because it’s East Side and doesn’t have a Fanny Garver or State Street Gallery feel, it’s one of my favorites because Absolutely Art buys outright the work of local artists and craftspeople. This is a daring and supportive move that is essential to the survival of artists but often drags down a shop, because they are putting themselves, rather than the artists on the line, something the rest of the retail world routinely does, but few galleries dare risk. This alone endears me to Absolutely Art, but on top of that, they always have quality art. Something pretty impeccable about the work found there – even art I’ve seen elsewhere and not liked, but liked at Absolutely Art – seems to arise. They are artists themselves, putting together a shop that feels like a constantly rotating and well-composed piece.

This time, I wandered into a world of photography like I haven’t seen in years. A very subtle combination of professional look and whimsical content, the work of Sarah J. Shoenhaar is bright, cheerful and spacious, and suits its showing gallery well. Her work fills the right hand wall of Absolutely Art, but does not dominate. A balanced mix of black and white and color photography, she harkens from the classic (a close-up of a rose entitled “For Love of Georgia (O’Keefe)” to the totally ironic (“Classic Laughter” – a close-up of a Sponge Bob Square Pants doll in one of those put-in-a-coin-and-get-a-toy-if-you-can-claw-it machines at Wal-Mart) and the exquisitely abstract (“Smokey Leaf”, with half a leaf tumbling off the edge of a roof and the faintest trace of cloud far behind).

It is hard to do abstract justice. Sarah enters into a very spacious world and doesn’t make contrived abstract photography. It is not just when she is photographing leaves contrasted with sky (“Smokey Leaf” or “Landed in a Dream”, where many bright reds skirt the edge of a gossamer sky), but also when she photographs non-traditional portraits (“School for Farmers”, of a boy at a local CSA at the end of an adult’s hand, surrounded by three quarters of a field of empty space in the rest of the photograph). She excels at what I call “ekphrastics” (In poetry, an ekphrastic poem is a poem based on a work of art. In photography, one takes a photo of an already existing work of art and makes a new work of art that honors the already existing art); for example, “Touching Everything and Nothing”, taken at the Milwaukee Art Museum, of the slightest portion of a marble statue. Her abstracts are elegant, surreal, and very human, unlike quite a bit of abstract photography that has passed our eyes in the last 20 years.

But her clear love is for the human subject. The largest swatch of photos (though photos involving or featuring fall leaves take a close second) are of feet – on the ground or in the air, surrounded by leaves or water. Then there are the whole human bodies, still slightly abstracted but so lovingly interpreted – “Twist and Turn,” with a girl in water, splashing with the drips on her hands still visible, and even, harkening on other sentient beings, “Two Little Monkeys,” with a photograph from the zoo of monkeys in trees, only taken of the reflection of the monkeys in the water below.

In most of her reviews, her odd angles and unusual takes on typical scenarios in Madison (“View from Overture,” which uses reflections to mimic double exposures, or “Of Different Zones,” which takes a shadow and dark view of a young girl and her sibling in a baby carriage at Farmer’s Market) is what wins her over to reviewers. While I always think that a spontaneous, “Polaroid” look is whimsical and effective in breaking the paradigms that often burden art photography, Sarah’s work is more than just that. Sarah has been photographing these works not as her only hobby, but alongside many other interests (“I usually exhibit my poetry with my photography,” she said to me at her opening). And the thing that personally draws me closest to her work, besides its strong and unique visual appeal, is that she uses the most bare minimum cameras – point and shoots, or single lens reflex cameras with automatic settings, just to see what she can get by not affecting the settings too much.

Being someone who loves working within limitations, I really admire folks who can create professional quality work with limited materials. Most artists seems to find this offensive – as if it somehow is a scofflaw in the face of “real art,” but I love that she doesn’t know if she will ever become a photographer. Why doesn’t she know that yet? Because she’s just 16, a fact the rest of reviewers love to emphasize (“Teen’s photos honest, real”, www.madison.com , Thursday January 11, 2007), or, because she has been homeschooled since age 12, mostly due to her mild Asperger’s syndrome (a mild form of autism), another fact other reviewers gloat over. I mention these things so you know I am reviewing her, the same artist the other reviewers will mention. But I ask you to look at her work as I did, without knowing anything at first, as the work of another artist, of any artist, of a new set of eyes on the scene; with the same spaciousness she treats all of her subjects, sentient beings or sky.

Absolutely Art
2322 Atwood Avenue
Madison, Wis.
Showing through Jan. 31