JUXTAPOSITIONS

LENNY GERARD

//Lenny is a Los Angeles, California based photographer and artist with university degrees in both photography and contemporary music. While in his professional life he does commercial work as an art director and content creator, his private interest has led him to work with Polaroid photography and digital editing techniques.

“My personal work is primarily concerned with speaking out about social justice and mental health issues through photography, mixed media, and graphic design. I strive for the political statements hidden within my personal conceptual artistic works to make people think and shed awareness on relevant issues,” Lenny says. “I have formal training with a B.A. in Contemporary Music and a B.F.A in Photography from Parsons School of Design (NYC) and 10+ years of experience working in ad agencies/record labels/non-profits/startups and for billion-dollar companies (Netflix, H&M, NBC, Svedka, Tommy Hilfiger, etc.) as an art director/content creator. In my free time, I am interested in combining Polaroids and digital editing techniques. I’m known for doing wild things with instant-film (enlargements, grids, etc.). I’m inspired by finding new ways to use instant-films as a medium every day. The niche community I’ve tapped into, of instant-film photographers on Instagram, I am so grateful to have found as they truly are like family. We write letters and send Polaroids to each other internationally. Art can make the world go round, and that’s what I’m about. Spreading love through art, while sending a message to open people’s eyes to make them think – to end willful ignorance.”

What draws you to the arts?

“I was raised with a lot of traumas in my life, and I think that really changes how I see the world. I think that I was always raised to be on edge or fearful and I didn’t really know what it meant to be safe, and I think that really influences my work because I put so much emotion into it because I have so much emotion to give.

I see the world with so much vibrance and that’s my unique vision and I think there’s not just one unique instance that shapes my work, but it’s my past experiences and traumas that shape my work and give it it’s unique voice. I like to incorporate themes of hope and a different future in my art by making it as good as I can with the hopes of easing other peoples’ pain and to soften their hearts.

When we lift ourselves up and see something surreal and fantastical, it enlightens us and inspires us to create and be cathartic. Without good art and seeing wonderful things in this world, what would the world be? A world leeched of color. The thing about art is that it is self-expression, and you don’t need to express this type of emotion or pain or endless suffering to anyone because it’s on paper or on a canvas and it is an ultimate indicator of humanity and when you self-express, you heal, and so I give hope by creating as much as I can to inspire people to do the same – to self-express and heal themselves through the act of creation; Because again, creative self-expression is the ultimate indicator of true humanity. I hope to inspire others with my art to make art for themselves because I make art to better myself and I hope others do the same if it benefits them as well. Again, creative self-expression is the ultimate indicator of true humanity.”

What do you like most about this artistic photo series?

“What I aim to communicate and like best about the project I’m submitting is the awareness it brings about… The buildings and their purpose in this capitalistic society. In the morning I would take the first picture, the day, warmer picture of a building in Hollywood where I worked at the time when I started the series, and that would symbolize the start of the workday for the entire city. And then after work, I would hang out in my car for about two hours and take the cooler night shot. I would take the photo in the same place on a tripod and what I wanted to communicate was that it was a full 8 to 10 hours that people would be stuck in their workplace building slaving away M-F because of capitalism. We’re forced to “adult” and work and furthermore avoid joy and life and what there is out there — the abundance, what we are talking about now which is analog photography, art, different ways of seeing beauty, the natural world’s abundance that brings us joy, people who create something out of nothing just for the thrill of it and other people see many things within it that are all different and that’s beautiful and capitalism just ruins that because we are forced to work to survive during the most gorgeous hours of the day, and that takes our time away from creating and bonding with that which is a cathartic, healing, natural, and all-knowing. The thing that we have been doing since the beginning of time – exploring and creating. Capitalism drives monotony and decreases creativity. It is the symmetry that influences this project and symmetry is often key in architecture. Symmetry pleases the eye naturally. It is found in nature and is structurally sound and stoic. Symmetry makes me calm. With the symmetry I create in each and every Polaroid in this Day vs. Night juxtaposition series, I get to be in control, and with that brings me a sense of calm, therefore, it is my obsession and fascination with symmetrical architecture, land and waterscapes, landmarks, and structures that influence this series so significantly. Through Polaroid photography, I strive to connect with audiences on an emotional level, offering them a glimpse into the timeless and enchanting realm where day and night embrace, forever frozen in an instant.”

In the liminal spaces where day and night coalesce, Lenny´s Polaroid photography series seeks to capture the ephemeral beauty that emerges from this delicate balance.

“Through my lens, I explore the transformative power of light, showcasing moments of transition as they unfold before me,” he explains. “My images are not mere snapshots of time but rather a meditation on the intricate interplay between natural and artificial illumination. In the realm of Polaroid photography, I find a unique canvas that allows me to freeze these fleeting moments in a tangible form, preserving the ethereal in a world often characterized by relentless motion. Each photograph in this series represents a carefully orchestrated dance between two distinct worlds. The daylight, with its soft and warm embrace, gradually surrenders to the enchanting mystery of nightfall. In these moments, urban landscapes and natural scenery undergo a metamorphosis, revealing a hidden narrative that can only be unearthed through the lens.”

It is quite interesting to learn how Lenny came up with this project: “The relationship between temperature Polaroid film and how I experimented with it came about when I started really becoming involved in a project in Joshua Tree, where I took a mirror that was exactly square and set it upon an easel in the desert and started shooting with the Polaroid film and noticed that when it was cold at night in the desert, the photos would come out with a cool tone, and when I shot in the day they would come out with a warm tone. This inspired me to juxtapose by cutting up Polaroids by way of half day and half night. It inspired the series because I knew that I loved, well I’ve always loved color, and juxtaposing something orange and blue really spoke to me, since essentially they’re opposites and I started taking pictures of random buildings which weren’t symmetrical at the time and cutting them as I photographed the same building twice on a tripod in the same day and at the same place at night, and stapling them together. And later I involved symmetry into the work and that’s how the series formed.”

And so, the relationship between temperature and the film became very important because it’s the crux of what forms the juxtaposition. Without the temperature affecting the film there would be no severe difference between the two halves that make up the whole of the juxtaposition, the cool side and the warm side showing a drastic color juxtaposition or opposition due to temperature difference when the film was shot.

“The performative aspect of my image making process is really dependent on the way that I choose to act on what is in front of me, just like actors improvise in accordance to what they have in front of them. And with these juxtapositions I use improvisation in the way that I use chance to create juxtapositions that are representations of chance on light, symmetry, and the frame within a camera. The performative aspect is also exhibited in the buildings and the plateaus, canyons, landscapes, waterscapes, and landmarks that I choose to make grandiose — to make a statement as we often do in performative aspects. With these juxtapositions, I wanted not only to highlight images of mine by showing them in two different lights, but wanted to have the viewer think of them as not one work but two, as performances are often two perspectives on and off stage, lights on and lights off (day versus night). This collection has been showcased internationally, inviting viewers to contemplate the profound contrasts and harmonies that emerge when day and night converge. It is my hope that these images inspire reflection on the transient nature of existence, inviting us to appreciate the beauty that emerges in the spaces between light and darkness.”

The limited edition photo book “People Are Starting to Notice” featured part of this series and was temporarily stocked and sold out at the LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the Fall of 2022).

Click on the photos to see the full images.