Pine Flat

In the film and photographic series Pine Flatconstructed over a three year period, Sharon Lockhart addresses the experience of an American childhood, using the stunning landscape of America's Sierra Nevada Mountains to bring home the close relationships of children with their natural surroundings. Lockhart began by constructing a portrait studio in a small rural community, and extending an open invitation to local children, and then by immersing herself in their environment and noting the complexity of their interactions. Her highly descriptive, almost painterly portraits, taken over the course of several years, abjure narration for the pleasure of the gaze and the notion of temporality. The studio remains a constant, its black backdrop, cement floor and natural lighting; a theatrical setting that allows the children to develop a different kind of relationship to the camera. Those stills stand in stark contrast to the pictorialism of a series showing the community's majestic natural surroundings, and to the portraits on 16mm film that accompany them, which are both literally and figuratively moving.Lockhart, Sharon is the author of 'Pine Flat ' with ISBN 9788881586035 and ISBN 8881586037.