Photographs Find The Ways The World Rhymes

In one photograph, a man lounges against a food cart; in an adjacent picture, a man rests at a counter. In one photograph, three men sit in an antique car; in another, the car is similar, but now there’s no one in it, though there is a man standing next to it. Maybe one can detect a hint of pride in his stance.

The pictures are separated by time and distance. The street food vendor is in Peru, the man at the counter in New Haven. The men in the truck are in Havana, the man standing in front of the car in Torrington. But they are unified by form — first, by the photographer’s eye, and second, by the echoes of one picture in another, whether it’s the bend of an elbow or the shape of the car’s hood.

Finding those echoes in form is one of many pleasures in ​“New Documents” and ​“Surface Rising,” a dual show of images by Sven Martson and Michael Pressman, respectively, running now at Kehler Liddell Gallery in Westville until Oct. 25.

In an accompanying statement, Martson reveals that the formal echoes in his photographs aren’t altogether deliberate. ​“My work is a corollary to my movements through time and space,” he writes. ​“I photograph scenes of personal significance as they occur where I happen to be. It is my hope to discover and record meaningful moments in life through the process and craft of photography.”

If ​“New Documents” is any indication, Martson is succeeding admirably. Through his photographs, he finds connections among locations and events as disparate as a sailing lesson, a trip to a clothing store, and a walk along The Strip in Las Vegas. Street vendors in Mexico and New Haven offer their food with a smile, framed by curls of steam. Ladders in Pittsburgh, Mexico, and New Mexico take up construction workers, a painter, and once upon a time, Georgia O’Keeffe.

The photographs never succumb to too-easy parallels. Each place is given its individuality Martson’s photographs find the way ordinary happenings in the world sometimes seems to rhyme with one another.

What Martson finds in the world after he has taken his images, Pressman actively seeks out in the creation of them. ​“In his first solo exhibition at KLG, member artist Michael Pressman investigates the differences, and perhaps more profoundly, the similarities, between realistic and abstract photography,” an accompanying statement reads. ​“With this series of diptychs, Pressman states: ​‘Each pair is presented as if one click of the camera shutter captured both. Under the surface, they are alike — not abstract, not realistic. Simply, how I see the world.’”

Where Martson’s work puts the rhymes of the world amid the visual cacophony of daily life, Pressman turns down that cacophony and brings out the forms in their greatest relief. His abstract photography is truly abstract. In a few cases, one might guess what the image is actually of, but that’s not a game Pressman is really asking the viewer to play. It is about lines and color, the flow of shapes and shadows. And as Pressman’s statement suggest, even his realistic images tend toward a formal simplicity. In person, the black and white images of seascapes are particularly lovely. Pressman has a real knack for capturing a sense of movement and mystery in his subjects, and for reveling in the infinite shades of gray that make the detail of his photographs worth getting lost in.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions, Kehler Liddell Gallery has limited open hours — Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. — and can also be open by appoointment (email [email protected] or call 203 – 389-9555). To mark the exhibit while keeping numbers down, the gallery has smaller and virtual events planned.

On Thursday, Sept. 24 and Friday, Sept. 25, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., a limited number of couples can sign up for Double Date Nights. A tour of the gallery is followed by a reserved table at Rawa, just down Whalley Avenue from the gallery. $30 per couple covers the tour, two drinks, and two appetizers. SalonThrive — KLG’s ongoing virtual studio tours — will feature Martson on Sept. 20 and Pressman on Oct. 4, both at 5 p.m. Participation is free, but people should register in advance.