Through This Lens 303 E. Chapel Hill Street, Durham, NC 27701 919.687.0150
 
 
artists>Moriah LeFebvre
 


Ninth Street copyright 2016 Moriah LeFebvre
Ninth Street from Hometown (Inherited) © 2015 Moriah LeFebvre


Hometown (Inherited) by Moriah LeFebvre

Note: Some originals and and many prints are on display and available for purchase even though the full show has been replaced by other work

In the news:

Articles have appeared in the Herald-Sun newspapers in a column by Blue Greenberg, and more recently in the Duke Chronicle. To read the Chronicle article by Christy Kuesel, following this link: http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2016/03/local-exhibit-explores-changing-durham-landscape

Ms. LeFebvre also has her artist's talk, mentioned above, available on line here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nlGD0lqcK8

Free and open to the public


Dedication: For Clyde, my cherished teacher, who made light more luminous, colors more vibrant, and brush strokes more vital.
Thank you for setting the bar higher than ever appeared reachable, and for believing in me when I did not believe in myself.
Clyde Fowler (07/04/1947-02/01/2016)

Statement: I became a mother in January of 2013. When I did, the lens of my world changed. As a new mother who was raising children in my own hometown—now their hometown—I found myself struck by the realization that the Durham of my childhood looks so different from the Durham of today, and that the Durham of today will invariably look quite different from the Durham of tomorrow. I could hear the conversations we’d had one day—the comments I’d make being eerily reminiscent of the comments of every older generation before me. “This used to be an enormous field where I would run and play as a girl,” I would say. “Before it became the Harris Teeter.” I kept encountering locations—physical moments in time—in which the change and transition was evident, in which the environment was in an active state of flux. These were glimpses of something elusive that I felt should be captured. They hinted at answers to the questions that may be asked later—What happened to this ground we are standing on? How did we get where we are now?

And so, I began to take a series of photos of local parents and their children in these locations in flux, starting with an image of myself and my young sons standing in a clear cut forest in north Durham. From these images, I created mixed media pieces in which I blended collaged photography and acrylic paint. All of the images in these series depict transitional moments I witnessed in Durham’s landscape from 2014-2015. The series is, in part, about the changes in the landscape. But even more it’s about what we’re teaching and showing the next generation about these changes in the landscape. I believe it’s over-simplistic to assess these changes as positive or negative. Some aspects of these changes are inspiring and exciting; some are short-sighted and problematic. This is a series about asking questions, about awareness and intentionality, about opening our eyes fully to look and take in what is happening around us. It is about being able to remember this present moment we now stand in, years from now when the Durham of the future has eclipsed our memories of the Durham of the past.

About the artist: Moriah LeFebvre is a Durham-based artist and photographer who works in a range of media to explore various themes including transience, identity, and interpersonal connection. In her latest body of work, for which she received the 2014-2015 Ella Fountain Pratt Emerging Artists Grant, she examines changes in the physical landscape of her hometown of Durham.
Moriah’s art education began in the Durham public schools and at the Durham Arts Council. She continued on to graduate from the Visual Arts department at the UNC School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and to receive a BA in Studio Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has since created a large body of personal work and completed dozens of both private and corporate commissioned works.  She has participated in many solo and group exhibitions, had her work published in magazines both domestic and abroad, and taught at various local institutions, including The Durham Arts Council where she spent her own early days. Now a married mother of three, Moriah works out of a home studio space where she continues to produce her own personal body of work as well as commissioned pieces.

originally shown at Through This Lens:
February 19 – March 15, 2016
Artist's Talk Sunday, March 13 from 2-4 PM

 

Please phone 919.687.0250,
or email throughthislens@gmail.com,
for availability and pricing


 
 

 

Free and open to the public
Regular Hours: 10:30 AM - 5:30 PM Tuesday - Friday
Saturdays 10:30 AM - 4:00 PM
Sunday & Monday by appointment
Third Fridays open until 9 PM


© 2016 Through This Lens, Inc
303 E. Chapel Hill Street
Durham, NC 27701
throughthislens@gmail.com
919.687.0250 - www.throughthislens.com
this page updated March 20, 2016