FOUR 11 Gallery is pleased to announce our inaugural exhibition featuring the photography of Emily J. Hara titled Mute. This marks the artist‘s first solo exhibition in New York. Mute. focuses on images of romantic, yet curiously still, interiors that invoke both tranquility and melancholy. Organically capturing the seemingly simple beauty of inanimate objects, the artist gives voice to her subjects, being chairs, beds and doors, through color, position, and natural light. Hara’s examination of all things quiet results is an abstract narrative full of contemplation, reflection, and compassion.

Originally from Birmingham, Alabama, Emily J. Hara began her photographic career leading her from the South to Southern California and then to the East Coast. Pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Photography as well as in Art History she fine tuned her black and white skills as a fine art photographer. While studying in Santa Barbara she turned to color photography and began composing fine art images and writing about her many travels across the United States and the world abroad.

Armed with color negative film and a Twin Lens Reflex camera from the 60’s, she began shooting interiors and landscapes of the many locations that she visited. Her art depicts places that have a distinct and intrinsic nostalgic history, particularly one that can be romanticized. Entering specific spaces and leaving them as untouched as she finds them, be it hours or years after the inhabitants have left, she photographs without equipment (no tripod or artificial lights), or pre-meditation (no set arranging or prop styling), and without artificial post production processes. Capturing naturally occurring scenes lit by the ambient, natural light of the location, she translates psychological landscapes onto traditional medium format film. Known for stylistically using directional light, low contrast, and a wide film latitude her images appear moody, sometimes blinding, etheral, and haunting.

Emily J. Hara is a published travel and fine art photographer for Travel Squire and has shown in museums and galleries nationwide including those in the Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk, The Center for Fine Art Photography at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Fort Collins, Colorado, public galleries in Long Beach and Newport Beach CA, and in Park Slope / Brooklyn, NY. Emily continues to photograph and exhibit her work and curates for galleries in Manhattan while currently residing in New York.