Winston Wachter Fine Art, New York is excited to announce Don’t Be A Square, an exhibition of new works by photographer, Margeaux Walter. In this series, the artist expands on her signature style of creating environments that tread a fine line between fantasy and reality while taking a closer look at the natural world. Walter investigates the current period in history known as the Anthropocene age and how human activity has started to have a significant irreversible impact on the planet’s climate.
In December of 2019, Margeaux Walter began this body of work during a two-week stay in California, and then continued the series in 2021 when she was awarded the Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency. She set out to explore the disconnection between humans and the landscapes around them. In each of the photographs, Walter constructs “a glitch in time”, as if humanity has camouflaged itself into the surrounding land, yet cannot find harmony. Each “glitch” is portrayed in the form of a square, a shape rarely found in nature, which can be interpreted as a pixel or cubicle.
The artist sought out landscapes with depth and saturated in deep hues. She needed to capture the scenes at just the right time of day while using various props to stage each story and herself as the characters. In the image Backstage, a sunset of pinks and blues illuminate a rocky foreground. A pink curtain floats in the center of the image, parted just enough to allow the viewer to see a character dressed to match. The photograph, Nap, while it appears to be a still and calm scene, has someone drifting away on a lake in all blue clothing, lying in a matching inflatable couch.
Margeaux Walter plays with the contrast between the striking landscapes and subtle human present imbedded in the image to create a surrealistic tableau. Her work pulls the viewer in, requiring more than a quick glance, to spark a second thought about the relationship humans have with the environment and the impact even little changes can make.
Margeaux Walter was born in Seattle, Washington and currently works between New York City and Joshua Tree, California. She studied at the Maine Photographic Workshops, Tisch School of the Arts (NYU), and Hunter College. Her works have been exhibited in museums and private collections across the country. They have also been featured in publications including The New York Times, New York Post, Seattle Times, Boston Globe and Scene Magazine.
She received her MFA from Hunter College in 2014 and her BFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2006. She was awarded an ADC cube in 2022 for her NYTimes Work Friend series and has received multiple honors from the Magenta Foundation Flash Forward, HeadOn Photo Festival, Photolucida, Prix de la Photographie Paris, International Photography Awards, The Julia Margaret Cameron Award, and other organizations. She has been awarded artist-in-residence programs at Montalvo Arts Center, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Marble House Project, VCCA, JTHAR, Red Gate Gallery in Beijing and BigCi in Bilpin, Australia (Environmental award). In 2020 she was the recipient of the Sony Alpha Female Award (2020)
