'Lopez sees and uses light as a liberator .... to liberate darkness from death to give light the mystery it commands as a force of nature.. and to illuminate his vast emotive and profound concerns about being alive and about seeing itself. he is one of the best.'
- Larry Fink.
The photographs in JML NYC 02-23 were made over two decades as Joseph Michael Lopez traversed the streets of the boroughs of New York by foot. Devoid of the visual tropes associated with the city, the images instead present a vision of New York as it was experienced.
Each picture is carefully composed of an untold story, happening before and continuing after the frame. They show details of the city: a man sprawled on the floor of a train, the spray from a city fountain, a bird in flight, a shard of light on park railings, a crying child being carried down subway steps and couples lost in each other. The people in the photographs appear constantly in motion, moving in and out of frame against the static backdrop of angular city details and architectural canyons. Collectively the photographs in JML NYC 02-23 impart not how the city looks, but how it feels.
Signed copy.
