Barbara Norfleet
Born 1926, Lakewood, NJ, lives and works in Cambridge, MA
Skunk and Strawberries on Great Pond, 1985, C-print, 16” x 20”, Lent by the Artist
Barbara Norfleet first encountered photography as a supplement to her research while teaching social relations at Harvard. Her background in social history informs the imagery of her documentary-style photographs that are in themselves metaphors for human behavior.
Norfleet’s Manscape with Beasts series explores the contact zone between animals and humans in intense color photographs taken on Martha’s Vineyard. She depicts animals that have managed to adjust to mankind by living on the margins of our society such as rats, raccoons, gulls, ducks, and skunks. They are not cute and fuzzy, but are instead the hapless victims of the debris-strewn land Norfleet refers to as a “manscape.” These animals react aggressively with bared teeth and appear confused or angry. The setting always relies on human artifacts, including litter—pill bottles and car wreckage—or arrangements of food and drink that evoke Dutch still-life paintings. Norfleet shoots these scenes at sunrise or sunset in order to capture what she calls “apocalyptic skies” and uses a bright flash to create bold and often otherworldly colors. The resulting photographs create a dramatic psychological confrontation between man and beast, culture and nature.
