Get "In Focus" With The Latest Exhibit at the Skylight Gallery

Five different artists offer a compelling, in-depth look at everyday life spanning four separate continents. This is the simplest way to describe the new art exhibit, New Works # 14, by the New York-based non-profit art organization, En Foco, a non-profit art collective that started in the South Bronx during the 70’s.

En Foco's original goal was to give Latino artists an outlet to show their work and have their voices heard. Now in its 37th year, it has expanded to include people from all ethnicities and backgrounds across the country.

New Works #14 is running now until July 1, at the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation’s Skylight Gallery, located at 1368 Fulton Street.

New Works #14 offers audiences a glimpse at everyday life and ordinary people, ranging from rural America, to China, to Peru, Uganda, Mexico, Norway,  and even right here in Queens, New York.

The exhibit features the work of five photographers who take aim at breaking down the traditional role of documentary photography, by investigating its subjective, intimate and personal nature.

Each photo on display portrays a seemingly ordinary scene that at first glance seems simple, but upon deeper thought and further survey, speaks volumes-- a level of depth that could only be understood from careful analysis.

Curator of the Skylight Gallery and Special Arts Project Manager, Jacqui Woods called the exhibit "full of depth and meaning beyond what you see at first."

Editor and Publisher of Flak Photo.com, Andy Adams, selected the photographers/artists: Rona Chang, Alex Leme, Susana Raab, Daniel Ramos and Sarah Sudhoff, for display at the Skylight Gallery as part of En Foco’s annual New Works Photography Awards, which is a fellowship program that selects three or more U.S. based photographers of Latino, African, Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islander heritage through a free and open call for submissions. Adams acted as Juror for En Foco’s New Works #14 series.

Among the most captivating of the photos is Alex Leme’s Small Town: Portraits of a Disappearing America. Leme shows portraits of various towns and communities throughout rural America that convey a  way of life that is fading, standing in stark contrast to most of modern America. The images show factories and towns slowly decaying and the faces of the people struggling to get by.

“I like this exhibit because it correlates a lot with what is going on in urban America. People right here in Bed-Stuy can relate to rising property costs, unemployment and a bleak out look on the country as a whole,” said Woods about Leme’s photographs.

Woods was also captivated by Susana Raab’s Cholita series, which shows pictures of a repressed social class just because of their mixed ethnicity. Cholita is a series of photos that show mixed race Peruvians, often called by the offensive racial slur “Cholo” and considered second class citizens, in all of their natural beauty and complexity.

“I find this series absolutely wonderful. I think [Raab] really shows all of their beauty,” said Woods of the Peruvians.

One picture of a young Peruvian girl posing in front of a canvass really stands out for its expression of how racism can have little meaning once you really take a look at who and what a person is truly.

For more information on the exhibit and gallery hours you can contact the Bed-Stuy Restoration Corp. at (718) 636-6919 or log on to their website at www.restorationplaza.org.