There is something almost post-apocalyptic about Bob Horowitz's photography. His preferred subject matter—locations which humans have shaped, abandoned or otherwise altered—begs for verbal description. The implicit stories of places that exude loneliness, such as the one in Salton City California (pictured), yearn for acknowledgement, remembrance and the sustenance of meaning.
Rebecca Muller's mixed-media constructions echo elements of decay found in Horowitz's photos, though her artistic mission seems to be more tactile or textural. Juxtaposing materials light and heavy, foreground and background, and light and shadow, her work somehow succeeds in drawing the organic from the mechanical, extracting life from the lifeless. The process is metaphorically akin to the growth of mosses or mushrooms from the compost of a forest floor, albeit one that incorporates the fodder of the man-made.
The two artists share a show, Light: Remnants, which runs through the month of May.
Through May 31, Gallery A3, 28 Amity St., Amherst, (413) 256-4250, www.gallerya3.com.
