The Paula Cooper Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs by Bing Wright, running from 28 March through 26 April at 465 West 23rd Street. This is the Seattle-born photographer’s second one-person exhibition with the gallery.

The exhibition will include a selection of black-and-white photographs of roses from 1996 and 2006. Originally inspired by Edward Steichen’s “Heavy Roses, Voulangis, France 1914,” a famous print showing an arrangement of sensual rose blooms in the process of wilting, Wright began taking pictures of roses in 1996, but eventually abandoned the project as he felt defeated by the loaded, iconic quality of the subject.

In 2006, Wright decided to return to the project, approaching the images as reductive tableaus in a soft gray scale tonality. Wright’s camera alternately captures an overturned stem or a lone leaf floating in a vase, scattered petals lying about or thorny stems crossed like battle-axes in a vase. Shot in a very shallow depth-of-field, the dissected flower appears to hover in and out of focus, with some details attaining the sharpness of an ink drawing (a frequent quality of Wright’s work) while others fade into the background.