Summer 2013 by Jessica Tampas

Issue 57

Building on her prior b&w series, Lucid, Jessica Tampas here continues to photograph the children vacationing in the lake cottage community in South West Michigan where she and her own family have spent the last five summers. By now, the area's children have grown, and are taking on stronger identities, and we want to know their names. CC, Brooke, Conner, Orly, JP: no longer small, they confront the viewer languorously, honestly, inquisitively. The additional use of color adds a heightened sense of their presence.

The cottage's screen door is also a subject in these scenes. Both it and the children get older, but as the former becomes more pockmarked and worn if serves as a foil, further heightening the perfection of her subjects' youth. Brooke holds a worn out doll -- a baby that is in fact more than a hundred years older than herself. JP holds a perfectly ripe tomato -- underscoring a sense of the seasons, and their passing. All, however, keep the screen between themselves and us. "I'm interested in the idea of the barrier," says the artist. "Who or what is in front or behind; who is in the dark and who is far away -- buried, even, behind this decaying screen."

All images are "untitled"

Jessica Tampas lives and works in Chicago, IL.
To view more of Jessica's work, please visit her website.