Sharon Lockhart: Pine Flat

still from Pine Flat, 2005 (16mm, TRT: 138 mins) © Sharon Lockhart It was sometime last fall that I first saw the work of Sharon Lockhart. I went to the screening of her film Pine Flat at the Harvard Film Archive after seeing her exhibition at Harvard’s Sackler Museum.

Lockhart began by constructing a portrait studio in a small rural community, and extending an open invitation to local children, and then by immersing herself in their environment and noting the complexity of their interactions. Her highly descriptive, almost painterly portraits, taken over the course of several years, abjure narration for the pleasure of the gaze and the notion of temporality. The studio remains a constant, its black backdrop, cement floor and natural lighting a theatrical setting that allows the children to develop a different kind of relationship to the camera. Those stills stand in stark contrast to the pictorialism of a series showing the community’s majestic natural surroundings, and to the portraits on 16mm film that accompany them, which are both literally and figuratively moving. - Photoeye

Though there were a few intriguing large-format photographs at the exhibition I was much more drawn to the rotating 16mm film segments (that I would later see combined in the full Pine Flat screening) - the long, contemplative scenes depicting children placed within a natural environment. If I remember correctly, all of the work was made over a three year period in a small town in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. It was the first time I had seen such “photographic” film (or “photographic” film that I liked) and I was captivated by the experience watching a single framed moment unfold in in real time, the camera unmoving. One of the scenes in particular caused a sort of optical illusion effect when viewed long enough. They were startlingly beautiful or perfectly boring, depending on your taste. Though I couldn’t find any film samples online, there are more stills available here. If you’re interested in Sharon’s work, don’t miss Pine Flat (the book) or her other projects.