Kristine Potter at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York

Kristine Potter is known and valued for her delicately ambiguous and compelling representations of masculinity. A component also present in her latest photography work Manifest, now on view at Daniel Cooney Fine Art in Chelsea, New York.

In her previous, impressive body of work The Grey Line, Potter’s staged portraits of military men bent the boundaries of representation to a grey, in-between zone, where ideals of strength and masculinity find new meanings – leaving room to ambivalent interpretations, and a latent homoerotic sensuality. This grey zone is also evident in her aesthetic choices, since both Manifest and The Grey Line are printed in low-contrast black and white (interestingly, a result of her careful post-production on large-format color negatives).

Manifest addresses the theme of male archetypes by portraying the inhabitants and landscapes of the American West – precisely, on the Western slope of Colorado. A collection of faces and vegetation, interacting with each other, and with an ideal – that of men living outside mundanity, chasing their own morality and lifestyle. That ideal today is still real, but Potter’s camera succeeds in shifting our attention from the myth to the actual people, by exposing their weaknesses instead of celebrating an impersonal legend. Little details, foliage backdrops and shelters, and subtle facial expressions walk us to a soft entrance, built for us by the artist, into the lives of these loners, outcasts, “weirdos.” Her gentle, intelligent interest allows us to see through prejudice, at least for a bit, into a newborn, up-to-date mythology, which is more at pace with our current questioning of gender – and, more in general, of socially accepted roles.

Kristine Potter: Manifest at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York through November 1, 2014