In Place

NAVA Contemporary is pleased to present, In Place, an exhibition of paintings and photographs that brings the enduring tradition of the still life into contemporary focus. Featuring work by Gordon Douglas Ball, Patrick Sansone, and Sonya Yu, the exhibition explores how each artist imbues ordinary objects with unexpected significance, translating the visual language of still life into a meditation on memory, perception, and presence.

 

For centuries, artists have arranged fruit, flowers, vessels, and everyday objects into carefully orchestrated compositions that speak to beauty, mortality, abundance, and the passage of time. In Place draws upon this rich tradition while expanding its possibilities through contemporary perspectives. Rather than simply documenting objects, these artists transform the familiar into something revelatory, asking us to reconsider what we so often overlook.

 

In Gordon Douglas Ball's paintings, commonplace objects become meditations on solitude, tenderness, and escape. Stripped of narrative and rendered with remarkable restraint, his compositions create moments of contemplation that offer refuge from the noise of contemporary life. Patrick Sansone's Polaroid photographs similarly elevate the everyday. Cropped with a cinematic sensibility and enlarged into luminous C-prints, fragments of daily life are distilled into bold, intimate compositions that linger between nostalgia and mystery. Sonya Yu's richly saturated photographs draw inspiration from the Dutch Masters, referencing the symbolic traditions of seventeenth-century still life while embracing the precision of analog photography and natural light. Although her arrangements evoke the familiar, each image is meticulously constructed, inviting viewers to question where observation ends and invention begins.

 

Across this selection of works, the still life becomes a study in tension: between abundance and absence, permanence and impermanence, artifice and reality. Together, these artists demonstrate that the genre remains as resonant today as it was centuries ago, not because of the objects it depicts, but because of the enduring questions those objects continue to hold. In Place invites viewers to look again, discovering meaning in the ordinary and beauty in the act of sustained attention.

 

Gordon Douglas Ball's work deals with alienation, loneliness, and artistic independence. Informed by his early interest in photography, his current work concerns creating images of simplicity, kindness, and ultimately something that could offer a level of escapism from the world of today.

 

Self-taught artist Patrick Sansone creates striking Polaroid photographs that reference observations of stillness, lure, and intermission. His work embodies a Southern aesthetic, not unlike Eggleston and Christenberry. Enlarged into C-prints, the images offer a record of a time and place that is thrillingly intimate but forever just out of reach.

 

Sonya Yu's quiet yet vibrant photographs capture the beauty of mundane objects, breathing life into classic still lifes. Heavily influenced by Dutch master painter Johannes Vermeer, Yu’s creative process is anchored in the strict exercise of analog photographic techniques and the meticulous use of natural light. The artist's studio is set up to recreate the self-same, unique conditions the 17th century painter worked under. Yu's conscious and methodical practice eschews technology to achieve a highly distinctive visual style, one that artfully combines contrasting textures with harmonious color palettes.