Top image by Shelly Westerhausen of @vegetarianventures.

Recent Collaborations

We’ve been trying out some collaborations at Pictura lately, and a few of them came into being this month.

We are grateful to both photographers, Leigh Merrill and Andrés Mario de Varona for taking a chance with us. Any time you’re releasing your work into the wilds of another person’s imagination, it’s a risk. These artists took a leap in allowing others to present their own new interpretations of their fully resolved imagery.

The first collaboration was a new production created by a choreographer, dancers, a composer, and a photographer. For Fernanda Ghi, the choreography staging and mood for the Argentine tango performance ​‘Black + White’ were all directly inspired by the haunting photographs of Andrés Mario de Varona. The idea was ambitious, and the resulting performance was wonderfully strange and avante garde. The music, the projected imagery, and the dance were all powerful on their own terms. Together, they were emotionally overpowering, in the best of ways.

This past month, we also held the first of a pop-up dinner + art series at Pictura that we’re calling ​‘Good Taste’. We invited a local chef, Erika Yochum of Oona, to choose one of our upcoming photographers, and create a menu inspired by the photographs. Yochum connected with Leigh Merrill’s bright and complex photographs, and she ran with it. At the dinner, Merrill offered jet insights into her work, and Yochum delivered dishes that completely exceeded my imagination. (Chefs are artists too!) We didn’t know quite what to expect going into all this; it felt like a big experiment, but it came together so beautifully.

-Lisa

Photos by Shelly Westerhausen of @vegetarianventures | Artwork by Leigh Merril