Harrison Galleries, situated on University Boulevard, held a reception for 2 new images reveals, “The Last Shift” by Maz Derakhshani and “Safety Pins” by John Prince, in downtown Tuscaloosa on Friday.
The reception featured reside music and refreshments for the numerous college students and Tuscaloosa neighborhood members who attended. The two reveals have been displayed alongside one another on the second flooring of the gallery.
Derakhshani, who earned his MFA from the University and has since been working as a Tuscaloosa-based photographer, mentioned Prince was his professor in grad college and was an excellent mentor.
Derakhshani mentioned the 2 determined to have a twin present after he graduated. While Prince’s photographs have been framed individually in several styles and sizes, Derakhshani’s photographs have been laid flat in opposition to the wall like posters, overlapping with one another to kind a single collage.
“John has a more classical, portrait-style approach to his work. He has his own vision for how he sees the world,” Derakhshani mentioned. “Meanwhile, I was trying to fragment the place and make the time pass in the project. I wanted to sequence the photos in a way that kind of encapsulates all three years in one work.”
Derakhshani mentioned his photographs have been the results of visits he had made over time to Jackie’s Lounge in Tuscaloosa. He mentioned he went to the bar repeatedly in an try to seize its complicated environment.
“This is the third show I’ve done presenting different pieces about the bar. There are lots of different things happening there,” Derakhshani mentioned. “There are different people with different backgrounds and different personalities who come to the bar, especially since Jackie’s is very old — they’ve been operating since 1968. There are things there that aren’t perfect, and that’s part of the ordinary moments of life.”
Dylan Sullivan, a freshman aerospace engineering main, mentioned he loved how each Derakhshani and Prince’s reveals have been targeted on the odd.
“The mundaneness of the photographs means they really capture everyday moments and feel familiar no matter what your background is,” Sullivan mentioned.
Avery Grantham, a freshman kinesiology main, mentioned the present made her need to go to extra artwork occasions sooner or later, because it gave her one thing attention-grabbing to debate.
“Some of these photos feel Midwestern, which is where I’m from, but my friend from the South says they feel southern,” Grantham mentioned. “I think it’s supposed to feel familiar like that to everyone.”
Derakhshani mentioned that not like his earlier reveals, which had been extra portrait-focused, “The Last Shift” is supposed to actually encapsulate a spot and let folks take away their very own interpretations of it.
“A dive bar like Jackie’s brings up stereotypes, but I don’t like people to see everything in stereotypes — life is more complicated than that,” Derakhshani mentioned. “In photography, every choice is deliberate. I’m not trying to make a linear narrative, but something more fluid — all my photos here are one piece of work, combined.”