Sandi Haber Fifield: Cross Currents at the Tracey Morgan Gallery

Sandi Haber Fifield: Cross Currents at the Tracey Morgan Gallery by Emily WallOctober 9, 2022

©Sandi Haber Fifield, Cover image LS17_195, 2017 Unique Archival Pigment Prints; Graphite; Wax Pastel; Vellum; T-pins 53h x 8w x 7.5d inches

New York based artist Sandi Haber Fifield recently had an exhibition, Cross Currents, at the Tracey Morgan Gallery. The exhibition brought together three distinct bodies of work, As Birdsongs Emerge, The Certainty of Nothing, and Lineations. Utilizing the medium of photography as a point of investigation, Haber Fifield’s work challenges ideas of perception as she recontextualizes photographs of the natural and built environment by way of hand interventions and layering. The work revels in deep, evocative colors, geometric shapes, and lyrical lines as Haber Fifield unearths the mysteries of the sites she photographs while adding to them her own sense of wonder.

©Sandi Haber Fifield, GD19_309, 2019 Archival pigment print 33 1/2h x 26 3/8w x 1d inches Edition of 5

©Sandi Haber Fifield, GD19_289, 2019 Unique Archival Collaged Pigment Prints; Graphite; Vellum 37 1/8h x 26 3/8w x 1d inches

In As Birdsongs Emerge, image fragments are frequently thrown into conflict, with no single material or conceptual element outweighing the other. The series seeks not to resolve but question the strata of seeing—finding comfort in the unseen rather than the apparent. The Certainty of Nothing utilizes photographs taken by the artist at the ruins of Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat, two sites built in the 12th century in present day Cambodia, exploring the frailty of civilization and drawing from Hindu legend. The title acknowledges both the inevitability of nature to reclaim itself, and the persistence of these sites of ancient civilization to exist in our modern world. The series Lineations combines straight and altered photography, transparent layers of vellum, and hand-drawn elements of carefully variegated line weight. In these images the haptic and visual elements combine into a compositional whole that encourages conceptual investigation.

©Sandi Haber Fifield, GD19_280, 2019 Unique Archival Collaged Pigment Prints; Graphite; Vellum 22 1/2h x 29 1/4w x 1d

Sandi Haber Fifield (b. Youngstown, Ohio) received her MFA from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States including: The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; The De Cordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; The Oakland Museum, CA; The Philadelphia Museum, PA; The Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, FL; and The St. Louis Museum, MO. Her work is included in numerous major public collections, including The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; The Brooklyn Museum, NY; The High Museum, Atlanta, GA; The George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, among others. She lives and works in Shelter Island, New York.

Follow her on Instagram: @sandihaberfifield