Homage to a changing world - Grade Solomon

Can you tell us a little bit about how you became a photographer?

When I was in middle school, I had a clique of friends I would skate with, one of them would always record us with a Rebel t5i. I asked if I could play with it one day and I was enthralled with the photos you could take with it. At the time I was only exposed to the image quality of an iPod touch. I picked up my own shortly after.

I started off taking pictures of my friends downtown, of nothing, photos of flowers and cars or whatever.

The first time I went out at night with my camera it felt mischievous and wrong, that the only people wandering the streets at 3am must be “bad people”. There was something empowering, camera and tripod in hand, about being one of those “bad people”, peering into windows and standing in front of yards. Under the streetlight, I was the only waking person in the world. The world was mine, and I could make it look like anything I wanted.  I chased that feeling into the sunlight. 

Photo: Grade Solomon

Please share something about your images. What is your special interest? How do you choose the colors, composition, themes etc.?

Some themes I’ve been thinking about recently are when the familiar becomes unfamiliar and recognizing familiarity in the absurd. My photographs are a tribute to a world in flux, where the potential for growth and resilience lies in the rubble. Themes of longing and isolation pervade my work; the images obscured by layers of my recurring dreams, and half-forgotten memories.  Because my photos have been with me as I’ve grown into adulthood, youth and its disappearance are inseparable from my work.

Every photo I take has a distinct, singular, glaring connection to my memory that becomes a reference point. The viewer sees a secret piece of me they will never know. Yet, as they observe they find their own revelations, discovering their own secrets that I could never fathom. 

Photo: Grade Solomon

Where does this interest come from?

When I bring my camera to my eye, my goal isn’t to tell the story of what’s in front of the lens. I've always been interested in projecting my own thoughts and emotions onto my subjects. Road signs, electrical poles, and suburban rooftops merge into a haze of distorted reality. In my images, windows glow in iridescence, the ground mimics oil, and walls form gradients of blues and pinks. Less how I saw it and more how I dreamt it. The light and color are so manipulated, so hyperreal, my practice is more akin to painting with light than documenting with photography. 

Photo: Grade Solomon

How do you get inspired? And what inspires you the most? Films, books, or magazines? Or what surrounds you?

For myself, inspiration always comes during a period of making. There was one exercise that stuck with me from university. In my drawing class we were required to make 300 sketches before a project, just quick little ones. In the first 50 you could see similar ideas amongst the classroom, familiar surface level concepts and compositions. But by 200 you start to see more unique iterations and interesting developments. This taught me the value of allowing my ideas to evolve naturally over time and the importance of persistence. 

The way this translated to my photography is how I engage with common subjects on a daily basis.  The more I photograph them, the more they transform into symbols of complexities and the beauty that is humanity. 

What are your plans for the rest of the day? 

Probably just cook and chill.  

What else should we know about you?

I’m Grade Solomon, a Korean-American artist based in Ridgewood, New York. In 2022, I received my BFA in photography at VCUarts. I'm a fellow recipient of the VMFA and a finalist in The Outwin: American Portraiture Today at the National Portrait Gallery. My work has been collected by Harvard Fine Arts Library, VCU Special Collections, and the New York Public Library.