Untitled (Crotona Park from Thomas Ellis Photograph)

Darrel Ellis American

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 851

Ellis turned to photography following the loss of his father, Thomas, a portrait photographer killed in an act of police brutality. After his father’s death, Ellis discovered an archive of his commercial prints and family snapshots dating back to the 1950s. Treating these found photographs as essential source material, the young artist incorporated them into his own practice, creating works like this intergenerational assemblage. Ellis’s mother and sister are visible in the snapshot, which he projected onto the collaged surface of his studio wall. Commingling with ruptured fragments of collage, the ghostly projection evokes a legacy of trauma.

Untitled (Crotona Park from Thomas Ellis Photograph), Darrel Ellis (American, New York 1958–1992 New York), Gelatin silver print

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