In her Screen Grab series, Emily Roz creates collections of 3x4 inch Polaroid photographs taken of movies on the TV screen. By isolating individual images and taking them out of context, the visual patterns and formulas films use become more apparent. In Explosion, Roz assembles 99 images at the moment an explosion fills the entire movie/TV screen. The photographs, documented in pre- 9-11 indulgence in film violence, show the sheer beauty of the saturated oranges and reds. The reduced scale of the images shifts the original overwhelming sensation to one that is intimate and personal.

The 72 images in Crowd Scene calls attention to necessary transitional shots that convey place or population. The standard crowd shots: busy midtown sidewalks, packed stadiums or political events, present the nameless extras that could be any one of us. The brief inclusion of an overlooked establishing shot is the grease that propels a visual narrative forward merely by its juxtaposition to another shot within the scene. We rely on these familiar shots to suspend our disbelief.

The four works from Roz’s series Location Shots are diptychs that pair one image from a movie with an image of its true location in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan. The “live” image is an attempt to match a moment of celebrity in a common neighborhood setting. These pairs reflect the specifically New York experience of how a familiar location changes meaning when presented as a Location in a movie.

Also on view are 8 individual Polaroids of interiors where light and darkness illuminate evidence of children. These images reflect the haphazard clutter from childhood: toys, bars on windows, scribbles on walls, and how fleeting light can reveal both tenderness and entrapment.

Emily Roz has exhibited her work in group shows in New York and nationally. This will be her first solo show in Long Island City.

Sreen Grabs