Palo Gallery (New York, NY) is pleased to present Lightfall, the second solo exhibition at the gallery by acclaimed British photographer and filmmaker Jane Hilton. Featuring a body of 12 photographs and one video work, Lightfall offers an intimate and incisive look at the people and places that have shaped Hilton’s three-decade exploration of the American West.
In this new series, Hilton turns her attention to the emotional and symbolic role of light across Western landscapes and the lives embedded within them. Lightfall brings together portraits and vistas that are quintessential to the artistic and iconographic saga of American photography; in direct dialogue with the likes of Eggleston, Watkins, Lange and Adams.
Among the works included are select pieces from Dead Eagle Trail, Hilton’s celebrated series of cowboy portraits made in the homes of Nevada buckaroos and Arizona cowpunchers. Shown here in conversation with lesser known landscapes, these portraits underscore themes such as the legacy of a fading culture, the rituals of daily life, and the pull of heritage in a rapidly shifting world, all central ideas to Lightfall.
Jane Hilton, Ford Pickup, Ute Mountain, 2015. Courtesy of the Artist.
The keystone of the exhibition are Hilton’s luminous landscapes, including the dusk-lit Ute Mountain in Colorado. In these prints Hilton’s contemplative approach invites viewers to consider the stories, both cultural and personal, that the land offers us. Across the series, Hilton uses light as a narrative force, capturing moments where the visible and the unspoken converge. Essential to the discourse of American landscape photography, Hilton captures the cloudrolls and the dancing light of the sky, offering her unique eye and impressions of the West to the discourse.
Following recent stops on her Cowboys and Queens tour in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Tulsa, Lightfall marks a significant return for Hilton at Palo Gallery, offering a rare and richly textured survey of an artist whose work continues to illuminate the wealth legacy of the American west in photographs.
Lightfall opens with a celebratory reception with the artist on Friday, January 9, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM at Palo Gallery, located at 21 East 3rd Street, New York City.
