During her residency, Courtney Asztalos plans to create a playful publication, build an installation with a sound piece and field recording, as well as photograph members of the community in Rochester. Encore is inspired by a number of distinctly American spaces, each designed to offer an alternate reality and antidote to the complicated banalities of everyday life. The work is built around chance encounters in casinos, malls, restaurants, hotels, sites of refuge, etc. Subjects are chosen based on the way they perform in public; Asztalos is drawn to individuals who seem to channel the energy of the space and use it as a stage to amplify the performance of their imagined selves. Together they create an unstated collaboration.

Open Studio Wednesday, December 18, 2019, 4-6 pm

Courtney Asztalos creates photography, sound, installation, video, and books. Her work has been collected by museums and libraries, exhibited nationally, and published by the New Yorker’s Photo Booth. She has photographed for clients such as the New York Times. She received an MFA in Art Photography from Syracuse University.

Support for this exhibition came from Max and Marian Farash Foundation, Joy of Giving Something, and the New York State Council on the Arts Visual Arts program.