Sharon Lockhart

Created over the course of three years in a small town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, Pine Flat is Sharon Lockhart’s first project to center on a community in the United States. Working without a film crew so that she could better immerse herself in the life of the town, Lockhart has created a formally concise yet intimate view of contemporary rural life that focuses on the interactions of the community’s children, who engage in everyday activities in stunningly beautiful natural landscapes.
The book – conceived as a companion work to the film, sound, and photographic components that comprise the project – includes stills and a series of nineteen large-format portraits inspired in part by the 19th-centruty American tradition of the portrait photographer. Although personal, these images transcend individual specificity to approach the status of archetypes, evoking a wide range of art historical references, from Edouard Manet to August Sander.