Bespoke Gallery is pleased to present Jackson, Christy Bush’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. A reception for the artist will be held on Thursday, April 30th from 6 to 8 p.m.

The photographs in Jackson explore the terrain of adolescence as navigated by one self-possessed male teenager over the course of several years. Rather than a chronological depiction of the subject’s life in Georgia, the photographs capture intimate and ordinary moments of daily life and present an engaging and candid, yet unstaged, coming of age narrative – suspended in bittersweet impermanence. The 14 X 20 inch photographs are infused with light and colors that impart an idyllic quality, but clearly chronicle the realities of ordinary life.

Whether facing the camera or unaware of its lens, the subject conveys a serious and thoughtful demeanor that gives an impression of wisdom, purity, fearlessness and longing. The composure of the subject neutralizes the specifics of emotion, yet reveals very palpably the complications accompanying time’s passage. This neutrality in many ways enables the viewer to choose to interpret the images literally or to apply fiction to the suite of images—and what it is to grow up.

Bush’s series explores the friction generated by the beauty of the everyday and the fragility and complexities of impending and unstoppable change. Her work balances a nostalgia and wistfulness for youthful innocence and vitality with the excitement accompanying imminent adulthood. The co-existence of androgynous beauty and melancholy - and the clarity of this duality in her subjects - is inherent to her photographic exploration.

Bush currently lives and works in New York City and Athens, Georgia. She has shown her work in numerous solo exhibitions, most recently: Soundtrack to Nothing at Opal Gallery, Athens, GA (2008), Loveless in Toyko, Japan (2007) and at Bespoke Gallery (2006). Soundtrack to Nothing was also produced as a book in 2006 (Bespoke Publications). Bush has participated in a number of group shows. Bush received her BFA from University of Georgia – Athens.