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Patricia Sweetow Gallery

September 4 - October 12, 2008

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480 23rd Street Oakland, CA 94612
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Pomp & Circumstance
PATRICIA SWEETOW GALLERY is pleased to present Bay Area artists Jonathan Burstein, Visage, drawings with collage; and Bayeté Ross Smith, Pomp & Circumstance: First Time to be Adults, digital c-prints. Exhibition dates are September 4 through October 11, 2008. The artists' reception is Thursday, September 4, from 5:30 - 8:00 pm. PSG is pleased to debut Bayeté Ross Smith in his one-person exhibition, Pomp & Circumstance: First Time to be Adults. Trained in photographic and documentary methods, Ross Smith turns his lens on a unique American phenomenon, the High School Prom. The Black Tie event eclipses social, ethnic, and economic strata to become the preeminent rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood. On view will be twenty 24 x 20 inch digital c-prints. Taking his cue from the traditional Prom Photograph, Bayeté gives students from Berkeley, Oakland, Piedmont, and San Francisco the opportunity for extemporaneous posing as a commemorative marker. The photographs depict a vast array of budding identities — from the serious to playful flamboyance. Though his subjects present idealized versions of themselves, their conflict between youthful innocence and worldliness become apparent. Ross Smith received his MFA from California College of the Arts in 2004, and his BS in Photography and Graphic Arts from Florida A&M University. He has been awarded residencies at Can Serrat International Art Center, Barcelona, Spain; McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, North Carolina; Kala Art Institute, California; and Southern Exposure's Mission Voices program. His work has been exhibited at Zacheta National Gallery, Poland, and Goethe Institute, Ghana; and the San Francisco Arts Commission at City Hall, with an upcoming exhibition at RUSH Arts Gallery, NY.