Photos reach deep into go-go’s ‘pocket’

Made in Kenya, the Philippines and New York City, Deborah Terry’s large-format photos are austere yet lush, heavy on gray and black yet luminous. Using long exposures and sometimes shooting from elevated trains, she blurs the distance between seeing and dreaming. Her work has sweep, but close-ups are one of the exhibition’s motifs. Norman often focuses on a bit of a larger vista, and Lark Catoe-Emerson’s close views of imperfect skin turn veins, blotches and wrinkles into landscapes.

Danielle Scruggs also shoots tightly, rendering herself in off-kilter, black-and-white closeups printed on Mylar banners. But she’s interested in context as well as image, so she has surrounded the oblique self-portraits with text. These are phrases spoken to her, she writes, “in the street, in the office or in the bedroom.” This work is as introspective as any in the show, but by adding the dialogue she’s made it the most political as well.

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( Thomas Sayers Ellis / The Gallery at Vivid Solutions ) - “Go-Go Swingers,\" 2007.

‘Delusions of Grandeur’

One link between the three young, local artists featured in “Delusions of Grandeur: Ascension” is African American identity. Another is fabric. Amber Robles-Gordon (whose work was reviewed by The Post in July) makes abstract hanging assemblages that feature ribbons and scraps. Jamea Richmond-Edwards does idealized portraits that incorporate textiles, sequins and bows. Shaunte Gates includes bits of cloth and other found materials in allegorical paintings that draw on the tradition of biblically themed medieval and Renaissance canvases, but also sometimes suggest the heroic poses of sci-fi and comic-book characters.

The artists chose the exhibition’s title, and in a statement explain that it refers to “the ‘delusions of grandeur’ that each artist possesses in order to continue progressing . . . in their artwork.” The “ascension” part comes from one of Gates’s paintings, which depict muscular men who are both divine and debased, as likely to sprout wings as to wear to a crown of barbed wire. His figures are rendered realistically, as are some of his settings, notably the urban alley shown in “January 6, 1956: Time Traveler.” But other backdrops are wilder, sometimes verging on abstract expressionism. “May 28, 2004: Lost One” shows a man plunging into a loosely rendered whirlpool, as if diving into the picture plane itself.

Richmond-Edwards’s work is more formal. Faces, penciled in shades of gray, combine African American features with the somber bearing of Greco-Roman sculpture. Many of the countenances are identical, giving the work a paper-doll quality. These visages are surrounded by bright colors and patterns, and adorned with a rose-petal print in various colors. If the result seems a little too fashion-schooled, clothing is a part of cultural identity. Playing dress-up is one way that people define, or redefine, themselves.

Jenkins is a freelance writer.

(Un)Lock It:
The Percussive People
in the Go-Go Pocket

on view through Oct. 7 at the Gallery at Vivid Solutions, 2208 Martin Luther King Ave. SE, 202-365-8392. Saturday at Touchstone Gallery, 901 New York Ave. NW, 202-347-2787, www.vividsolutionsdc.com.

East of the River

on view through Sept. 16 at Honfleur Gallery, 1241 Good Hope Rd. SE, 202-536-8944, www.honfleurgallery.com.

Delusions of Grandeur: Ascension

on view through Sept. 16 at Parish Gallery-Georgetown, 1054 31st St. NW, 202-944-2310,
www.parishgallery.com.