Erin O’Keefe Natural Disasters

May 7 to June 27, 2025

IMAGES FROM THE EXHIBITION

Platform Gallery is pleased to present new photographs by New York-based Erin O’Keefe. “This series of photographs are still life images made in my studio. I am keenly interested in making straightforward studio photography that appears to have been manipulated—using analog means to reference digital effects, and playing with the awareness that our trust in photographic images has been so thoroughly undermined. The constructions are precarious, often on the verge of collapse, and the resulting images test our capacity to make coherent connections between seemingly disparate spaces and objects. The still life arrangements are constructed from studio debris, along with printed images of neoclassical architecture and statuary.

“This work was made in response to a general feeling of helplessness and anxiety that has become the brine of modern life. Conflict, disease and climate change destroy the promise orderly efficiency that seems like the birthright of our digital (first) world. I find myself wondering how to move forward, and what to believe in. Images that I relied upon to ground my understanding of the world are now slippery, unreliable things. The title of the series Natural Disasters refers to both the external brand of disaster that seems to arrive daily in the news or at our doorstep, and the internal variety—the failure of our eyes to find legibility and coherence in the images we make of the world.”

Erin received her Masters of Architecture from Columbia University. She has had her work exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Vancouver, Toronto, and Moscow. She was recently named one of Photo District News’ 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch.

Image: Walk the Line, 2015, archival inkjet print, 31 x 24 inches, edition of 3 + 2 APs