I was first introduced to Maury Gortemiller in early 2014 when he submitted to the AB American South issue and was immediately intrigued by the colors and compositions of his work. The slight uncomfortable feeling that hits the viewer while looking at the images is something you can’t seem to get enough of. I often find myself looking at Maury’s images for long periods of time simply trying to decide if the image was composed or if he stumbled upon a gold mine of spontaneity.

Maury Gortemiller photographs and teaches in Atlanta, GA. It all goes down on Ponce. He is also a competitive apneist and plans to make an attempt on the breath-holding world record by the end of fiscal year 2016. Gortemiller holds an MFA in Photography from the University of Georgia, and MA in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi and a BA in English from Baylor University.

All-Time Lotion

The discovery of a narrative within the mundane drives Gortemiller’s work. His photographs invoke open-ended possibilities for the viewer’s imagination. This series is endowed with sufficient visual evidence to ground it in the every day, along with a measure of ambiguity to belie a documentary approach.  Ever cloudy is the distinction between images created spontaneously in situ and those that are staged. While chosen as the title due to its sonorous qualities, the phrase “All-Time Lotion” specifies something balmy that doesn’t exist or make sense.  It’s a blank canvas, or a TV monitor, which emits light but displays nothing representational. The title also references an “all-time QB” in games of pick-up football – a most pedestrian and yet suggestive phrase. For all of you – I will do this forever.