Nick Shepard

"Content-Aware" will be on view at at Axis Gallery, Sacramento March 4–26, 2023

These photographic compositions celebrate the act of looking carefully.

"Content-Aware" includes photomontages that depict scenes of everyday loveliness made in Sacramento and beyond. The large prints, which include a dozen or more pictures blended all but seamlessly, invite viewers to spend time looking around the images, engaging with the scenes longer than they might out in the world where our attention is so often pulled a dozen directions at once.

This project continues interest in the construction and consumption of photographic images. Each print in “Content-Aware” contains a dozen or more captures that have been blended together to create a large composition. By combining multiple images, the mural-size prints include remarkable details that hold up under scrutiny. The images eventually reveal areas where the digital montage tools fail. Subtle shifts in composition or focus become visible, serving as reminders of the constructed nature of these pictures.

The exhibition’s title acts as an invitation to viewers and also alludes to Photoshop’s remarkable AI tool that automatically fills in one area of a picture by pulling in information from other areas in the same composition. This is just one example of many AI-based tools that are increasingly generating the images we consume. Perhaps as we look closely, we should also look carefully.

“Content-Aware” will be on view from March 4–26, 2023, with a Second Saturday reception with the artist on Saturday, March 11. I will present an artist talk Saturday, March 11 at 5pm.