Roller Skates by Jamie Pearl
10"x8" ($40) | 14"x11" ($85) | 20"x16" ($275) | 30"x24" ($1,450) | 30"x40" ($1,450)
Photographer Jamie Pearl is on a roll. Our newest edition with the artist, Roller Skates, is a deeply California-centric image for the 26 year-old New York City-based Pearl to have captured. However, it's no surprise that the skates' aesthetic, right in line with the fashion-infused tableaus that often serve as her subject matter, drew her in. The skates are positioned in the frame directly in front of a tin LA Dodgers sign, which itself serves as a nod to the NYC —> LA connection between photographer and object (the Dodgers started life as Brooklyn's team before moving west in 1957).
Pearl's unique approach to style-based still life photography is on full view in this piece. Here, the glitter-encrusted skates function as a sculpture, a relic, a means of escape...and they can be yours! For only $100, as the price tag notes, a lucky buyer could don these babies and push off into the Hollywood sunset without a care in the world. And that's the idea: in glorifying this particular object, Pearl prompts the viewer to exhale for a moment and think about childhood, the 80s, and fun. Actual fun.
After all, this image was snapped on a hot summer's day at the Los Angeles Rose Bowl Flea Market in 2018. As any vintage junkie knows, there are few more ecstatic ways to spend one's leisure time than hunting for treasures at one of the country's largest fleas. Shiny finds capture the eye and draw you in like a moth to the flame. The experience is akin to falling in love at first sight with a person, and Pearl captures this magic expertly. The cerulean laces! The thick, white rubber stoppers! Those cloudy gold plastic wheels, made rough by years of kissing the concrete! It's impossible not to pore over every detail in her piece, just as it's impossible for the viewer not to remember what it was like to circle the rink.
Glittery, glamorous and inviting, Roller Skates is an image designed to make you feel good. And can't we all use some of that?
More work by Jamie Pearl:
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