By Siera Schubach, Staff Writer

Published in print Aug. 27, 2014

Past and present merge in GreenHill’s “Light on China” exhibition, a photographic journey through a nation of contradictions. Seen through the lens of five different photographers, the exhibit showcases the complexities of a society moving forward while looking back.

Artist Joe Lipka opens the exhibit with his very basic images of classic architecture from China’s past. Complete with curved roofs and ornate doors, these buildings evoke a calm sense of a time long gone, photographed in simple black and white. Although it features images of beautiful buildings, Lipka fails to fully capture the depth of the environment, many of his prints seeming flat and empty.

In stark contrast to Lipka’s work is that of multi-print artist Barbara Tyroler. Her colorful pieces of surrealist photography evoke a sometimes dream-like reality that fully illustrates the emotional state of China’s people.

One of her most striking works is “Urban Apparition”, a beautiful multi-layered color print featuring a woman’s face, her head slightly turned and looking back at something the viewer cannot see, her form engulfed in a seemingly moving vortex of brown, red and green.

Part of Tyroler’s collection is based on the poems of Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty. These photographs add to her expression of time, the steadfast past linked to the ever changing present. Many of her color prints feature the faces of women or children, many of them lost within clouds of smoke or shadows.

One print, “Girl by the Great Grey Wall, Star and Fists”, is perhaps her most emotional. It is a photograph of a young woman, head in her hands, staring into the distance; to her right are shadows of two people walking beside a grey wall, their bodies distorted as if they were being blown away. Full of shadow and light, this print evokes the feeling of waiting while time drifts by.

Another, “Urban Spectacle”, layers the Chinese flag, a setting sun and crumbling wall over the face of a young child, all in brilliant red – an obvious statement on China’s Communist past.

Belgian photographer Jerome De Perlinghi’s work is a literal piece of the past, his black and white prints taken between 1985 and 1987. Set within a time of political upheaval in China, his photographs focus on the individual.

From the black and white world come the real faces of China; the shoemaker, fisherman, plumber and laundry women. In stark contrast to their broken surroundings, the faces looking into the camera are mostly smiling, a look of hope shining from their eyes.

Rounding out the exhibit are David M. Spear’s images of changing Chinese industry and those of Bill McAllister that focus on the more ancient images of China’s landscape.

Full of thought and beauty, the “Light on China” exhibit leaves visitors with a sense that they have traveled to a foreign land and come back realizing the commonness of human experience and how no matter how far we venture into the future, the past is always with us.

The exhibit is on show at GreenHill until September 6th.

For more information visit http://greenhillnc.org.