Mask: Photography inspired by cryptic 19th century art

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A drawing from the 19th century is what led to artist Frank Gimpaya’s “Mask” exhibition at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.

The drawing, called “The Veil”, is by artist Georges Seurat and features a woman wearing a veil over her eyes. One of Mr. Gimpaya’s students at Saint Peter’s University in New Jersey featured “The Veil” in a journal for class. This inspired Mr. Gimpaya to photograph the student as the model for “Mask” – black and white pictures of a young woman sitting with a reflective plastic mask and making subtle movements with her face and hands, or adding subtle rearrangements to her hair. 

“It’s very powerful but at the same time there’s something going on, some sort of tension,” Mr. Gimpaya said. “It’s almost disturbing.” 

Only 14 of the 140 photos he took ended up in the exhibition, which opened on July 13 and will run through Sept. 25. Mr. Gimpaya collaborated with En Foco, a non-profit organization that supports minority photographers.  

En Foco’s collaborative exhibition is more than a celebration of Mr. Gimpaya’s work or his first solo exhibition – it is also a celebration of a new era for the non-profit group. 

En Foco was founded in 1974, but during the past few years it was “hanging by a thread,” in the words of interim director Bill Aguado, because a lack of funding. Mr. Aguado said he took on the temporary director job in an attempt to help the group. 

“I have a commitment to the legacy [and the] artists,” he said. 

Throughout 2016 so far, En Foco has put together a fellowship to support artists, held an exhibition in Harlem, and has been regularly releasing a magazine called Nueva Luz to showcase local art. So when it was time, to produce “Mask,” the group was ready to get to work. 

Former Riverdale Press photo editor Marisol Díaz worked with Mr. Gimpaya as the exhibition’s curator, making sure the pictures were edited to his taste and not her own.

“When you have your work up, you are up there on the wall,” she said. “It is you on the wall and you are completely naked up there for everyone’s judgment and criticism and critique and everything.”

She said getting to this point was no easy feat. It took the pair two to three weeks of constant digital editing to get the images to look the way the photographer and the curator intended. 

“It’s an art of speaking to the work, and listening, and just letting the work tell you and guide you on what to do with it,” she said. 

Looking ahead to En Foco’s comeback as an arts organization, programs manager Layza Garcia said: “I’m ready to get my hands dirty all over again.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Aguado’s mission is to make sure artistic photography remains accessible for people to see. 

“I don’t want it in the stacks collecting dust,” he said. “[En Foco is] a legacy of activism.” 

Frank Gimpaya, Marisol Díaz, En Foco, Bill Aguado, Tiffany Moustakas

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