Reaching for the Skye
Skye Parrott's "Greyhound, NYC" (2010) is one of 25 images in the First Love, Last Rites show at Capricious Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The show "documents" 18 months of her life that represent a void filled by a relationship with a boy and drugs, both of which eventually ended.
Capricious Space is hosting a photo show by Brooklyn artist Skye Parrott, which “documents” 18 months of her life that represent a void filled by a relationship with a boy and drugs, both of which eventually ended.
From that period, Parrott only remembers memories of “particular moments.” Her exhibition, First Love, Last Rites revolves around about that foggy time, beginning when she was 15. For this body of work, Parrott asked friend Valentine Fillol-Cordier to play her using her old clothes and they set out to recreate Parrott’s recollections from that period.
The photo above, “Greyhound, NYC” (2010), was taken near the Port Authority, on the Greyhound bus route out of town. Parrott’s book refers to taking the bus up to Boston, where she would bring drugs to her friends who sold them at raves:
I remember boarding the Greyhound at the Port Authority, always almost late from a last minute run uptown. I would spend those rides walking back and forth from my seat to the bathroom, doing the dope I was supposed to be delivering. I would slide off the bus in front of South Station four hours and twenty minutes later with weak legs, blurred vision and speech so slurred I couldn’t understand myself.
The accompanying 26-page catalogue, First Love, Last Rites ($25 from Capricious Publishing) is intended to be viewed as a part of the exhibition. It includes images from the show, diary entries, interviews, and ephemera from old coat pockets.
I asked the associate publisher and director of Capricious, Karen Codd, to share her thoughts on Parrott’s series and what makes it special:
What I find most interesting about this exhibition is the honesty and creativity with which Parrott approaches her own past. She is aware of the limitations of her own memory; her life experience since the time of the pictured events has shaped the way she imagines them now. Knowing that, she ever-so-carefully extracts and stages visual details and nebulous feelings, as truthfully as she can. And whether the results are “true” or not, she presents them in a way that feels really real.
Eventually, Parrott began her career journey in Paris, where she worked as a freelance photo assistant, managing editor at Self Service, and studio manager to famed photographer Nan Goldin before starting on her own as a photographer in 2004. In 2008, she co-founded Dossier, a biannual arts and fashion journal, and Dossierjournal.com, a cultural website.
Skye Parrot’s First Love, Last Rites exhibition at Capricious Space (103 Broadway, Williamsburg Brooklyn) continues until February 5, 2011.
Image caption: Skye Parrott, “Greyhound, NYC” (2010)
