Yvonne Venegas

Born in California, raised in Tijuana, Yvonne Venegas spent her childhood assisting her society wedding photographer father with his work. Now living in both San Diego and Tijuana, Venegas trains her eye back on the lives of the middle-class, Mexican women who were her childhood friends. Venegas’ eye is empathetic, yet she is still an outsider of sorts, and this dissonance is palpable in her images. The images presented in Fotografia Reciente exist in a netherworld between documentary images and family snapshots. Somewhat personal, there is a haunting sense of an allowed intrusion given to someone familiar yet not wholly part of that which she is capturing. Awkward gestures and poses—expressions generated by the subjects, but not intended for the eye of the camera—create sumptuous disjunction. Gestures and expressions are supported by Venegas’ keen awareness of the lush possibilities of seemingly banal palettes, wherein she makes beige living rooms become heaving oceans of chromatic nuance.