Anna Salmeron's A Day of Orange


This is a photographic assemblage by Anna Salmeron consisting of digital prints affixed to mat board. The board is scored between the 1st and 2nd and 3rd and 4th columns so that it stands on the table much like a portable altar. This presentation is a fitting tribute to Anna's apparent affection for the color orange in its rich variety of everyday manifestations.

A Day of Orange is an orchestration of 16 "trophies" from an artist's self-imposed day long photographic scavenger hunt. Visually, it is composed much in the way that an abstract painting is. Shapes and colors are arranged so that there is an overall sense of visual drama and "balance." The work operates much like an organism in which individual cells can be seen...

The simultaneous presentation of a variety of subjects suggests a narrative work. Evidently, A Day of Orange documents the visual and compositional appetites of an artist under self-imposed parameters (orange in every photo) at specific (yet undefined) times and locations. There is a seductive openness to the variety of images which may urge many a viewer to construct his or her own story...

After the conceptualization of this work, its completion was swift and straightforward. Digital photos were taken and printed by the artist on her home computer. A selection of same-sized prints was then fit into the compositional skeleton of the Modernist grid. The final arrangement was glued...

I mention this not to detract from the aesthetic value of the work, but to point out the urgency and direct method employed by the artist to reach her goal. A Day of Orange has all of the best qualities of a powerful sketch. It is decisive, quickly realized and economical in its enumeration of an idea. It suggests the potential creation of a large scale work but is extremely potent on its own terms...
Reviewed by Michael St.Germain

Note: Anna Salmeron is a photographer and active member of the Atlantic Works Collaborative Art Gallery in East Boston, MA. She can be reached by email at: