Dreamscapes

Dreamscapes
Mindaugas Gabrenas

Durst Lobby
@733 Third Avenue
at 46th Street
New York, NY

April 2 - June 27, 2014
Open Monday - Friday, 8 am - 6 pm

In his "Dreamscape" series, photographer Mindaugas Gabrenas transforms moments and places into otherworldly scenes. Black and white images of the Baltic seaside are shrouded with soft focus and shallow depth of field, creating characters, situations and landscapes reminiscent of the obscured vignettes of dreams. These effects are not digitally added to the photographs, but mastered through use of film and camera. With Gabrenas' artistry, these reflections of sunny days at the beach become meditative, mysterious images.

Using the unknown variables of film expired 20 years ago, a light-leaking camera from the 1960's, and years of experimentation, Gabrenas works with these unknowns to craft each image. Though each photograph captures a single moment passing before Gabrenas' camera, years were involved in warping and degrading the film prior to that moment; the final image incorporates many factors beyond the photographer's control. In a sort of reversal to human memory - in which a remembered moment loses detail over time, "Dreamscape" presents the depth of time before the moment, degrading the lasting image of the photograph before it exists.

Mindaugas Gabrenas was born in Lithuania in 1977. He is currently based in New York City, where he continues to create using medium format films and equipment ranging from Hasselblad’s to homemade cameras. Landscapes, waterscapes, cityscapes, even melancholic dreamscapes – are his main interests.

image: Monophobia, 2011