Leslie Hewitt presents a group of black and white photographs from her ongoing "Riffs on Real Time" series, which she began in 2002. Different representations of time are staged in a visual language that speaks to the complex and simultaneous formation of both personal memory and collective history. Each photograph follows a set compositional order: a snapshot stacked on top of found or collected materials relating to black popular culture of the 1970s and 80s placed directly on a hardwood floor. The intricate layering of these materials reveals a decidedly postmodern take on the still life.
Of the achromatic series, the artist states: “In this body of photographs from the Riffs on Real Time series, the explorations of time via object and image, rests in the range of textures recorded through an achromatic scale. In this shift from color to its absence, Chroma takes on a role in the imaginary. The compression of space and the multiplicity of windows or openings takes on a tension where light meets darkness.”
Photographs from the "Riffs on Real Time" series are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; among others.