Face Value

Leon Alesi, Scott David Gordon, Lesley Nowlin & Jamie Panzer

Austin, TX – As part of our ongoing mission to support and promote the vibrant creative community in Austin, Davis Gallery is proud to announce and exhibition featuring new work by Austin talent Leon Alesi, Scott David Gordon, Lesley Nowlin, and Jamie Panzer. This show explores how we perceive faces and interpret personal identity through traditional portraiture, collage, and elemental images. We invite viewers to take time with each image, and allow elements and portions of each piece to emerge. 

Leon Alesi captures intimate moments of his subjects in personal surroundings. He strives to break down the barriers that we create around us. The results are images of unguarded and revealing truths about the subject. The physical surroundings and objects around the sitter tell us much about who they are. Alesi has exhibited extensively in Austin, Dallas, Seattle, and Houston. 

Scott David Gordon has been making a name for himself photographing some of Texas' best creative talent in their most personal environments- their studios and creative spaces. The images in this exhibition are powerful and sometimes intimate behind the scenes looks into the private lives of creative individuals. 

Lesley Nowlin is a twin. This series, Being A Twin: Elements, explores the complexity of twin relationships, with elements layered on top of each other. Her images are relational. Nowlin hopes that, through her work, viewers consider who we are and how we relate to one another. She strives to accept imperfections in the work as a reminder that nothing is perfect and no two people are identical. You can find Nowlin's work in collections across the state including the Witliff Collection and the SafePlace collection. 

Jamie Panzer has said that he wants to "exert influence on the habits we form concerning how we regard our environment". This current body of work, Experiments in Portraiture, is based on the phenomenon, Pareidolia which is defined as: The imaged perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist. Given the brain's propensity to see what it wants to see, we encourage viewers to spend time in front of the work and allow elements of the images to emerge and reveal themselves. Panzer has most recently worked with Austin Art in Public Places program on a piece called "Binary Branch" on the Boggy Creek Greenbelt. 

Curated by Susannah Morgan

http://davisgalleryaustin.com/images/press.facevalue1014.02.pdf