James O’Mara: Duets

×

Expand

James O'Mara, “Duets No 44,” no date

(courtesy of the Gallery)

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 20th, 2024

Paul Kyle Gallery is proud to present Duets, an exhibition of new works from celebrated photographer James O’Mara and the launch of his newly published book of the same title.

Duets extends beyond mere diptychs, representing a lifetime of visual diaries that have been revisited, reinvented, and reborn. O’Mara’s Duets are not just photographs, but rather graphic conversations between times, places, societies. With each pair, he places value on creating compositions that revel in the dialogue of texture, line, and form. This exhibition invites viewers to appreciate the absurd and the orderly, the organic and the constructed, all coming together in a harmonious visual duet. The integration of unrelated images echoes the essence of Rauschenberg's combine works and his ROCI project, celebrating the unity and dialogue between diverse cultures and people.

The creation of Duets is a delicate balance of an aesthetic decision. By carefully selecting and combining images, O’Mara emphasizes the importance of difference and context. The resulting pieces are stories told in tandem—a tree's bark mirrored in the stripes of a regal attire, the geometric interplay of concrete architecture with the minimalist purity of white space, and the overlay of vibrant human features with urban decay.

O'Mara's Duets captures the synchronicity of unrelated moments, merging them into a single narrative frame that invites the viewer into a deeper contemplation of space, time, and relationship. Through his lens, the mundane is re-envisioned, granting audiences a transcendent experience that surpasses the confines of conventional photography.

This exhibition is a landmark in O'Mara's accomplished career, and a celebration of the essence of life, captured through the lens of a photographer with the soul of a poet. With "Duets," O'Mara crafts a visual lexicon that narrates stories beyond the captured moment, and it invites us to reflect on the interconnectivity of our global community, a poignant reminder of our shared humanity in times where experiences are universally accessible yet deeply personal.