It’s not often that you meet a really great artist in NYC. There are a lot of people that pretend to be artists, or actually are artists (albeit shitty ones), or people that don’t know what the hell they are and just sort of fit into the hipster scene. Then there’s Juliana Beasley: a legit visionary in the world of photography. I say that with a lot of emphasis, because I’m self-admittedly no expert on the subject, but I know that’s it is pretty damn rare for a photographer’s work to move me enough to actually crave a piece to put on a wall.
And that’s exactly how I feel about Ms. Beasley’s latest collection, “Eyes of Salamanca,” which is being exhibited at Daniel Cooney Fine Art in Chelsea. This collection of photos is an almost trippy glimpse of a world that seems impossibly surreal to Manhattanites like myself: Mennonites on the Yucatan Peninsula. The work is incredible, and somehow made me wish that Juliana would decide to collaborate with a film crew to make a documentary that I’d be able to watch over and over again until I got my fill of the Amish-esque people that fill her photos. A natural at immersing herself in closed communities, in 2009, Beasley plans to live with and photograph a group of immigrant Mennonite farmers relocated from Belize to southern Mexico. The project is entitled “Eyes of Salamanca†after the piercing eyes of the people who live unprotected from the burning sun. Her photo titled “On the Fence” even made me consider dating a Mennonite (although I think Jewish girls with babies aren’t exactly their scene).
Beasley began her photographic career as a printer for Annie Leibovitz, later freelancing for the Village Voice covering the New York City nightlife. Her acclaimed work from her four year project on exotic dancers culminated in the book “Lap Dancer” (PowerHouse, 2003). Work from Lapdancer and a new long-term project, “Last Stop: Rockaway Park” about a forgotten and impoverished white community of the institutionalized and mentally ill patients and the alcoholics whom frequent the local Irish pubs has been shown in the United States and abroad.
This lovely lady is also the winner of various awards including the prestigious Aaron Siskind Fellowship (go get ’em girl!), and the New Jersey Council of the Arts, both in 2009. In 2007, she was nominated for the prestigious International Center of Photography (ICP) Infinity Awards. Her work is the collection of both the Victoria & Albert in London and Le Musee de La Photographie in Charleroi, Belgium.
She’s basically the “it” girl of photography (move over, Annie), but keeps it real with her dogs Moishe and Howard at her apartment in Jersey City. Curiously, I wonder if her dogs were named after branches of my family tree.
