Color Shift

Press Release

Nicelle Beauchene Gallery is pleased to announce Color Shift, the first New York solo exhibition by Los Angeles based artist Owen Kydd.

Owen Kydd’s work pivots on a nuanced exploration of visual perception through tightly contained video loops that simultaneously function as still videos and extended photographs. Referred to by the artist as durational photographs, these works present near static segments of time that slowly reveal elements of movement or change. Instead of searching for a decisive moment, Kydd records a virtual stillness that lends a perceptual uncertainty to the frozen image.

Kydd’s conceptual concerns hinge on this ambiguity of seeing. Whereas one typically relies on images and objects for narrative cues, these works only offer up small pieces of information, rendering them as seemingly variegated or endless territories. Borrowing subjects from traditional photographic genre, Kydd’s storefronts, urban landscapes and studio-based images function as still lifes which propagate the familiarity and generality of photographs while allowing them to hover in a temporally enigmatic zone.

Owen Kydd received his MFA at UCLA in 2012. Recent solo shows include Pico Storefronts, Torrance Art Museum, California; The Reckless Moment, Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver and Mission Night, Joshua, Vancouver Art Gallery. Additionally, Kydd has exhibited at Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Daegu Photo Biennale, Korea; Michael Kohn Gallery, LA and Kansas Gallery, New York. Kydd lives and works in Los Angeles.