Opening Reception: Emma Ressel: Glass Eyes Stare Back

Emma Ressel: Glass Eyes Stare Back
on view: May 14–May 24, 2024
opening reception: Friday, May 17, 5-7 pm

Strata Gallery presents Glass Eyes Stare Back, by New Mexico-based artist Emma Ressel. Ressel lives and works in Albuquerque, and she is a 2023-2024 Emerging Artist Member at Strata Gallery.

Glass Eyes Stare Back is the first exhibition of Ressel’s work exploring natural history collections, animal preservation, and environmental catastrophe. The show is primarily comprised of still life images she makes with a large format view camera, constructing tableaus with animals, objects, and printed backdrops to assemble fictional scenes of animals in nature. In this work, Ressel is interested in how natural history collections speak to the human desire to draw animals closer and form experiences with the species we are destroying. Her works convey not only her fears about the future of biodiversity, but also a sense of sublime awe about the mystery of what’s to come of our ecosystems.

Emma Ressel received her BA in photography from Bard College and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of New Mexico. Her work has been exhibited across the Northeastern United States and is held in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her first photobook, Olives in the street, was published in Italy in 2017. She was the 2022 recipient of the Film Photo Student Project Award and is currently a 2023-2024 fellow at the Center for Regional Studies at UNM. She lives in Albuquerque, where in addition to working toward her MFA, she teaches photography at UNM. This is her first solo show in New Mexico.

Emerging Artist Program: This project is supported in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.