Photographer Zoë Ghertner Zooms in on the Abstract in a New Solo Exhibition
As the contemporary art world gears up for the forthcoming Frieze Art Fair in Los Angeles, fine art photographer and fashion favorite Zoë Ghertner seized the opportunity to debut a new solo exhibition last Sunday. “I m here for a little bit, and I then have to be in Europe for the shows for fashion week,” she told Vogue as her guests arrived at the opening reception of Held in the Palm.
On show at Zodiac Pictures, a gallery belonging to curator Kate Hillseth that sits just steps from the beach in Santa Monica, the setting offers an intimate backdrop for Ghertner s exploration of ephemeral beauty and sensuality. “Kate had put me in a group show years ago, and we always had intended to do another exhibition together,” she says. “My work has changed a lot in since that since then, and so when she opened Zodiac, it felt like the right time for both of us.”
A graduate of Parsons School of Design, Ghertner is known for her naturalistic style and ability to capture the strength and sensuality of both women and objects, often bathed in natural light. Alongside group shows in London and New York, her resumé boasts collaborations with fashion giants like Miu Miu, Chanel, Gucci, and Hermès that manage to seamlessly blend the realms of fine art and commercial photography, as evidenced in her solo presentation, made you vanish, exhibited in collaboration with Chloé at Paris Photo 2021. For Ghertner, her fine art and commercial endeavors are simply interconnected facets of her artistic journey. “It s all my body of work,” she explains. “There s a contrast within those two worlds, but I try to infuse my commercial work with the same spirit and the same energy.”
For Held in the Palm, Ghertner’s lens has zoomed in on the minutiae and abstract elements of objects ranging from flora and fauna to natural elements and the human form. The photographs are part of a bigger body of work from which she pulled a selection, guided in part by a poem titled Honeycomb written by artist Nora Slade. “It was quite hard because I could have pulled so many different variations of images together,” she says of the curation process. “Nora’s poem really nailed what my work is about and then pushed me in a different direction.”
The gallery’s airy, beach-side setting also played a role in her selection, says Ghertner, who left her native New York for the bohemian enclave of Topanga over a decade ago. “There’s a lot of light coming in...a crispness and saltiness,” she says of the space. “I moved here from New York in order to change my work, in order to live a different life with fewer buildings and more horizons. California is where I m happiest and it very much informs my work.”
As the crowd moved around the space, immersing themselves in the images, Ghertner mused, “For me, this was a learning experience in allowing people to interact with my work in a different way. I’m comfortable with being on a page of a magazine or a billboard but to enter a room and be surrounded by the work in an intentional way is exciting and offers a new perspective.”
1/18Christie Hayden, Nathaniel Whitefield
2/18Emily Rosser, Alexis Piqueras and Andrew Gold