Easy world.
A solo exhibition by June T Sanders @ Kolva Sullivan Gallery, Spokane, WA, USA. 115 N Adams St.
Openining Reception: June 4th 5-8pm / Gallery Open on Fridays From 5-8pm and by Appt.
Interview with Strange Fire Collective
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I keep thinking about this out of context Lucille Clifton line “there was all around not the / shapes of things / but oh, at last, the things themselves”. It comes from Clifton’s “The Death of Fred Clifton”, written from the perspective of her late husband. I am stunned by her allowance and generosity. How she places herself inside of someone so close to her to see “the things / themselves”.
Each image is trailed by its referent. I see how I’d like to be in the image of what I am. Which reflexively reveals what I could be. Being photographed by June, making images with her, has helped me place myself along this empathic circuit. I stand in front of the curtain. She helps me tune my gestures and I help her tune her looking through mine. I stand in portraiture. A performance, a falsehood, a contrivance created in the eyes of another. To have the document of that exchange popped out of the back of a camera, peeled apart, framed, and then looked at by others who add over and over to the equation of creation and personhood—it’s hard to think of a greater pleasure—Giving someone what they are.
For me and others like me who have maybe never seen themselves reflected back in the way they want, this process feels implicit, correct, good, easy. Yes, perhaps even a whole world of easy. A world that’s here and not here. Created anew in each glimmering moment only to rest again at its perch on the horizon. The living is easy because it has to be.
-Abigail Hansel 5/31/21
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"June Sander's Easy World is a necessary and mystical archiving of memory, imbued with loss, longing, hope, desire, and despair. While Sander's chronicles lives in a particular time and place, her images build on universal themes and, ultimately, reflect on a world yet to be.”
- Zackary Drucker 5/1/21