January 19 – February 12
A reception and on-site lecture will both be held Friday, February 5 at 6 p.m.
The invention of camera phones and the ease of uploading images made on such devices to sites like Flickr and Facebook has continued to fill our world with an endless access to the visual. Of course taking a picture and making a photograph – at least a compelling one – are two different things. Such compelling imagery can be found in the work of Ben Espey. Espey photographs forgotten, empty and sometimes dilapidated basketball courts which a passerby might see as mundane and inconsequential. However, by photographing these objects and their surroundings, Espey is calling attention to that which we have made insignificant. Espey explains that our society has traded the communal practice of engaging in outdoor recreation for sitting in front of our televisions, computers and video games – hence the empty and dilapidated courts. Mundane or not, the courts – or rather the way in which they are photographed – present an eerie intimacy drawing us into the photographers view – one that is perhaps filled with longing for the past or a resurrection to our previous technology free world. Unsettling to look at, Ben Espey’s photographs remind us of what is left behind in the face of progress.
Espey holds a Bachelor of Science in Photography from Sam Houston State University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Texas. He currently teaches photography at Eastfield College and Tarrant County College.
The Eastfield Department of Visual Art presents the on-site Lecture Series:
Friday, February 5 at 6 p.m.
Stephen Lapthisophon, The Paradigmatic Lens
Focusing on language, time and distance as issues in art and culture, Lapthisophon’s lecture will address the role of vision and mediated images in contemporary consciousness including the hold of images– what we notice and what we discard and how we value the photographic in that negotiation.
Lapthisophon, a Master of Fine Arts graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is an artist and educator working in the fields of conceptual art and critical theory. Lapthisophon has taught at Columbia College in Chicago, the School of the Art Institute, and the University of Texas at Dallas. He currently teaches art and art history at the University of Texas- Arlington. Lapthisophon’s work is represented locally by Conduit Gallery.
Gallery 219 is located on the upper floor of the Fine Arts building (Bldg “F”) in room F219C. The lecture will take place in F201, directly across the hall from the gallery. Park and enter at the Performance Hall entrance on the west side of the campus.
Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on weekends by appointment. Contact Iris Bechtol at 972-860-7329 or
irisbechtol@dcccd.edu for additional information.
Juror: Paul Villinski
Eastfield’s Gallery 219 Presents Ben Espey: “Courts”
