Barbara Vaughn

Liminal Realities presents a continuation of Vaughn's waterscape series. Photographing in ports and marinas around the world, Barbara Vaughn captures unique images of vibrant abstraction. Although they are unmanipulated photographs, her distinctive compositions depict scenes that are wondrous and enigmatic, imagery that straddles realism and abstraction concurrently. Vaughn's exploration of the parameters of vision and cognition provided the impetus to document abstraction in the real world. The resulting close-up details of urban tableaux, and her mesmerizing reflections in moving water, challenge us to recreate the original scenes and engage the viewers' power of imagination in unexpected ways. This is the fourth solo exhibition of Barbara Vaughn’s work at KMR Arts.

"My desire is to create a visual puzzle for the viewer, born from the tensions between the representational and the abstract, the familiar and the unrecognizable, the physical facts and the photographic mystery. You're invited to decipher the truth.." - Barbara Vaughn 

Barbara Vaughn describes her series: "Apart Together" is a body of work created while sheltering-in-place in the spring of 2020. The collective experience of being torn from our livelihoods, relationships and routines during the Covid crisis provided the impetus to incorporate the act of tearing into my artwork. Working with available materials at home - an archive of my photographic prints, basic cutting tools and my two hands, I began selectively and meticulously rending apart and assembling together portions of disparate images. The source materials included photographs of layered posters, advertisements and billboards in varying states of deterioration, disparate water images, and macro details of textured brushstrokes from paintings by Ed Clark. The resulting amalgamations portray surreal unfamiliarity and reference the upheaval of the world, but also offer hope for positive change from this cataclysm.

Barbara Vaughn is a fine-art photographer based in New York City. A former portrait photographer, Vaughn has photographed many luminaries in entertainment, business, and the arts. Her work has been published in numerous books as well as publications such as The New York Times, Time, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Art in America. Previous solo exhibitions at KMR Arts include: Synthesi, 2016, MAYDAY, 2018, and Apart Together, 2020.  Vaughn graduated from Princeton University and attended the International Center of Photography in NYC, in addition to other photographic programs. She is represented by several galleries in the US and her artwork is in numerous prestigious private collections. Since 2013, her signature waterscapes and other photographic series have been the subject of numerous solo and group shows in the U.S. and internationally.