The most recent exhibit at JKC Gallery on Mercer’s downtown campus is work of photographer Patrice Helmar. The exhibit titled “Dirty Old Town” focuses on the awe and familiarity of returning to one’s hometown after living in another place for some time. In particular, it captures the everyday lives of people living in a small Alaskan town. A reception was held on Oct. 24 for the opening of the exhibit and approximately 20 people attended it.
According to Helmar, she used a 1940’s 4×5 film camera that took about 30 minutes to set up each shot.
“Each picture is like burning a $5 bill,” says Helmar, who comes from a working family and who used to be a bartender.
“Making work of your hometown is pretty personal, it’s like revealing something about yourself that’s near and dear”
Helmar says she was excited to have her work shown at Mercer, noting, “If somebody from Alaska can have a show in Trenton, then somebody in Trenton can have a show or do damn near anything they put there mind to.”
The current Gallery director is is Mercer Photography Professor Michael Chovan-Dalton, who says he came across Helmar’s work while producing his photography podcast called “The Real Photo Show.” They are also both graduates of Columbia University and Professor Chovan-Dalton says he also knows her from the club she has started called the “Marble Hill Camera Club.”
Professor Chovan-Dalton says that the Helmar’s camera choices used allowed her to capture an incredible sense of the landscape. He says, “In Alaska there’s great dramatic lighting and distant to be seen and I think that’s part of her work”
Christie Ciberey a Graphic Design major at Mercer who attended the exhibit said that “As you walked around you almost went through a timeline of the story shared through photography”.
Rachel Stern who has an M.F.A from Columbia University and teaches photography at Mercer also attended the reception for Helmar’s exhibit. She says Helmar’s work “was very lyrical. [The photographs[ felt like they told a story. There were these very beautiful and sometimes challenging little glimpses into a different place than where I’m from and a different life then I lived but the story I felt like was told in a very human way.”
Helmar says the people featured in her photographs have reacted well to them, and that she’d like to hold an exhibit in her native Alaska at some point.
