...and to draw a bright white line with light

Last week, I had the wonderful privilege of seeing Uta Barth's newest photography series at the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been my favorite photographer for some time, but this was the first opportunity I had to see her work in person. I was blown away by the crispness of her images, the streams of light that sometimes looked like washes of bright color, and the quiet meditative sensation of losing myself in her work.

In her newest series, "...and to draw a bright white line with light," Barth photographed the action of pulling her curtains to create undulating light forms that stream across the 15 large panels, hung slightly below the standard gallery height of 60". After staring at each of the images, my eyes slipped out of focus and saw the images not as window blinds and sunshine, but as rich texture that faded in and out of my view, and light that cascaded in the form of pure white streaks, rich against its darker shadows. If it weren't for the guard's nervous tapping on the door handle, I could have stayed in that room all day, with only the subtle humming of the lights and air conditioning, and the pure sensation of seeing light and texture in its most beautiful and elegant form.

- Jessica