Pharmacie

Opening Reception: First Friday, December 4
Artist Talk and Discussion TBA

“Il y a assurément un autre monde, mais il est dans celui-ci”
(There is another world, and it is this one.) — Paul Éluard

Pharmacie explores how photographic images can be transformed through the isolation, repetition, and recombination of elements already present within them. The title refers to nature as a repository of possibilities from which existing forms can be extracted and reorganized into new configurations.

Through repetition, individual elements take on a new presence and meaning. Arranged in sequences and patterns that aren’t always obvious, forms that once belonged to a larger scene become new, blended shapes and beings. We are prompted to ask, ‘what is that?’ To the artist, these new photographic images move beyond recording what was visible to the camera and become a way of reorganizing and interpreting the natural world, revealing new ways of seeing and finding meaning.

This series is built upon the artist’s experience visiting and photographing the Hoh Rain Forest in Washington State. Located within Olympic National Park, the Forest is one of the few temperate rainforests still intact. Characterized by very heavy annual rainfall, its lush landscape is draped with moss, ferns, and canopies of Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock trees, covering them like a second skin, altering their shape and creating otherworldly forms.

Walking through the forest resembled watching a silent film, as similar forms appear, disappear, and return in different arrangements. The photographic montages bring these experiences together through the repetition and rearrangement of fragments whose similarities create continuity, even when their boundaries remain visible. -Alejandro Loureiro Lorenzo

About the Artist

Alejandro Loureiro Lorenzo is a New York–based artist and Assistant Teaching Professor of Photography, where he also directs the Photography Program at Rutgers University–Camden.  His work examines how cultural differences challenge and reshape the meanings of objects and images. Engaging with the complexities of interpretation, he investigates how cultural contexts alter the significance assigned to everyday materials and visual representations.  Central to his practice is the tension between normative interpretations—collective frameworks that prescribe meaning—and the personal mythologies individuals construct to navigate their own experiences. By bringing these perspectives into dialogue, his projects create spaces where images can be questioned, unsettled, and reimagined. alejandroloureiro.com

Public Art at RoCo

RoCo’s public art program enlivens the East Avenue neighborhood with temporary, site-specific public sculptures and special projects. Support provided by The New York State Council on the Arts, Farash Foundation, The County of Monroe, Richard Schwartz, Anne Havens, and Members of RoCo! This installation is presented in partnership with Christ Church and adjacent to the Cooney Family Garden.