wintermelonlemonjuice
Nicole T. Venker & Matt Venker / Monaco Project Space
June 28, 2024 - July26, 2024
Monaco is delighted to present wintermelonlemonjuice, the first solo exhibition of photographs by Nicole T. Venker and Matt Venker on view in the Project Space. wintermelonlemonjuice is organized by Monaco members Marina May Schleicher and Nick Schleicher.
Please join us for an opening reception Friday, June 28, 2024 from 6 to 9 p.m with viewings available on Saturdays from 12 to 4 p.m. and by appointment.
ARTIST EXHIBITION STATEMENT
A sweet and sour reward for making your way through the unknown, wintermelonlemon juice takes viewers halfway up a mountain and asks them to find their own way back. Pairing Nicole’s analogue photography with Matt’s digital images, this show is the culmination of the Venkers’ recent month-long travel in Thailand and Taiwan, where they maintain long-standing work and research interests.
Finding the private sanctuaries we create within busy spaces, wintermelonlemonjuice explores
feelings of anticipation and tranquility amidst uncertainty. Turning away from the spectacle of ‘travel photography,’ wintermelonlemonjuice offers a meditation on how mundane moments of noticing ground us when we are far from home.
ORGANIZER STATEMENT
The core of wintermelonlemonjuice, lies as much in the photographs, as it does in the dialogue that occurs between the work of each photographer. Documentary photography is meant to do just that - to document the circumstances we find ourselves in.
The irony is that in wintermelonlemonjuice, we witness the pure intimacy of the makers. We see, unfolding before us, a conversation, teased out not with language but with the click of a shutter.
A shopkeeper peers out of his blue-hued booth, surrounded by plush toys. Bushels of blooms blossom around a flower seller who tends to her work, back turned. A man sits alone in an arcade; four teens play games on a group date. Back and forth, to here and there.
The pairings present, but do not describe the dialogue between the Venkers, but it is ongoing. Ever present in their maneuvering of light, composition, and focus.
Nicole shoots on analog, Matt on digital. By virtue of their different mediums, we get an immediate separation of tones. Many of Nicole’s photos appear warmer, fuzzier, with figures in movement blurred. We get swept up in the pace, and can feel the hum of life. The fog on a mountain. Matt’s are crisp, perfectly composed. We have distinguished faces, and features, cracks and crevices of mountain rock. A surreal stillness that expands each moment for hours.
The photographs in wintermelonlemonjuice merge and diverge effortlessly. They share an empathetic core, built on curiosity and devotion to authenticity. In both their anthropological work and in their photographic practices, the Venkers do not fear not knowing. The photographs place us with them. In a perpetual state of unknowing and constant learning.
As we venture further, deeper into their mutual exploration, we begin to feel as they do. Supported. Capable of climbing up a mountain with the assurance we will not be alone, and that we’ll find our way back down. Together.
Written by Marina May Schleicher
ARTIST BIO
Nicole T. Venker (b. 1994, New York City, NY) is a human-environment geographer, currently pursuing a PhD in the Dept. of Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University. Focusing on migration from Myanmar (Burma) to the US, her current research traces cultural memory, environmental knowledge, and diasporic communities across transnational landscapes of displacement and resettlement. Through photography, she explores the sometimes surprising yet intimately familiar ways that people work, play, and live in a globalized, hyperconnected world. Making images helps her also make memories and connections with the people and places she meets in her scholarship.
Matthew Venker (b. 1990, St. Louis, MO) is a cultural anthropologist and photographer. He conducts research on the lasting influences of colonial law on the contemporary politics of race, identity, and belonging. Though his current work focuses on Burma (Myanmar) and the United States, Matt bought his first camera during a project in Taiwan in 2010 and began experimenting with photography as a meditative act to ground himself while conducting research. Matt uses photography as an equally archival and artistic practice, documenting the details that mark a time and place as unique and the cultural and emotional throughlines that connect that time and place to others. In both his work and personal life, photography remains an important practice for noticing, witnessing, and connecting with the world around him. Matt earned his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2023, and is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University. You can find more of his work at matthewvenker.com.
Nicole and Matt Venker are currently based in Ithaca, New York. They will spend the next year split between St. Louis and Thailand.