Photographs from Magdalena Solé series Mississippi Delta will be on view at Sous Les Etoiles Gallery from September 27th through November 10th, 2012. The opening reception with the artist will be held on Thursday, September 27th, 6-8pm.
Mississippi Delta is an exploration of communities in the South. The Delta is an iconic region lying between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers, running from Memphis, TN to Vicksburg, MS, a place that evokes visions of sharecroppers, plantations and, of course, the sound of the blues. A small wealthy gentry and a large impoverished underclass live in dilapidated houses and tilting trailers.
Magdalena Solé is a social documentary photographer on a quest of simple everyday beauty. In this series she tells the story of people who make do with little. She shows their living conditions with dignity, though a sense of lethargy prevails, the quiet and silence that characterizes the South almost palpable. It is a place where changes do not happen fast. “My work is about communities at the edge of society," Magdalena Solé explains. "My photographs describe brief moments of human existence, carried by the rhythm of a setting. They convey what is at once simple and vast, passing and constant, ordinary and intangible. What inspires my pictures is light and the hidden spaces it illuminates, especially in immigrant and working class communities. Places where beauty is found in displaced spirits and peeling paint.”
The Delta images were initially created for a book titled “New Delta Rising,” distributed by the University Press of Mississippi. It has won the Silver Award in 2011 at PX3 Prix de la Photographie in France. Most recently her photographs of the Mississippi Delta have been selected as a PDN Photo Annual 2011 Finalist. Magdalena Solé is also winner of the Silver Prize 2011 at Slow Exposures, Concord, GA.
The tonality in Solé's images maps the experience of her work. Known for her sensitive expressions of culture through distinctive color artistry, Solé uses color to encapsulate a range of feelings, whether richly saturated or time worn. Her projects span the globe: current work includes Kamagasaki, a photo documentary on the shunned elderly day laborers of Japan; Cuba: communities on the brink of change, where the past is still visible, but the future not yet in focus; and Tohoku: after the water receded, an exploration of the aftermath of the great 2011 Tohoku disaster. Born in Spain, raised in Switzerland, and fluent in seven languages, Solé arrived in New York City in 1984, where she currently lives with her family.
