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"Most people don&#039;t think of the simple and the familiar as promising artistic subjects.  But in the hands of the right talent, even the most commonplace object or event can take on unsuspected meaning and a new, often unexpected presence.  That&#039;s the case at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center, where curator Michael Preble has paired the works of two talented Virginia photographers in &amp;quot;Looking Large: Photographs by Sarah Hazlegrove and Georgianne Stinnett.&amp;quot;  But the unusual scale of these pictures — some of which measure more than 4 feet wide — is hardly the only reason why many viewers will stop and stare, then forget how long they&#039;ve been looking.  Laid out on the wall in a giant, visually arresting rectangle, the 24 black-and-white images that make up Hazlegrove&#039;s &amp;quot;Chairs of Paris&amp;quot; series combine, in fact, to form one of the most engaging sights staged by any Hampton Roads museum in a long time.  And who would have guessed that the stars of such an outlandishly large and compelling display would be nothing more than empty chairs?  Organized in conjunction with &amp;quot;The Common Object&amp;quot; — a concurrent exhibit showcasing 30 views of dish towels by 25 different painters — both the Hazlegrove and Stinnett series give you the chance to see a single subject explored again and again by a single artist.  That makes them just as tightly focused as they investigate the expressive potential of the ordinary and the familiar, yet also richer in terms of the glimpse we get into the eyes and mind of an individual talent.  An intermittent resident of Paris for nearly 30 years, Hazlegrove began making portraits of chairs in the 1990s in an attempt to capture some sense of the city&#039;s changing and — in some ways — fast-disappearing landscape and character.  Shooting them singly and in multiples, her pictures show each empty chair just as she found it —sometimes in cafes, sometimes in the open air and sometimes upended on tables or folded and stacked. Over time these images became evocative subjects in their own right instead of mere parts in a larger and more complex landscape.  Calculated framing helps give them identities, creating surrounding spaces full of implied or suspected meaning. Unusual angles and vantage points contribute to their impact, too, injecting a feeling of uniqueness in subjects that might otherwise seem commonplace and familiar.  Then there are the halos of light that envelop some of her portraits — and the shadows that cloak others — giving each one its own distinctive mood and atmosphere.  Seen all together, the pictures provide a remarkably rich record of Hazlewood&#039;s evolving vision as she prowled cafes, parks and even subway stations — always looking for a shot that could add something fresh to her collection.  They also take on meanings you might not expect, including suggestions of personality and lingering conversations between their past occupants. Some even seem to persevere through old age and crippling infirmities while others feel aloof, genial or abandoned.  In contrast, Stinnett&#039;s large color studies of animal forms bristle with an air of strangeness and mystery from the beginning.  You might not recognize what some them are at first glance, in fact, because of the artful manner in which she manipulates your point of view, making you look at a dove, dog, snake and other relatively ordinary creatures as if you&#039;d never or only rarely encountered them before.  Part of the effect comes from her use of radically pared down taxidermist&#039;s forms, which are placed inside the animal&#039;s skin during the drying and shaping process. Though all of these ivory-colored polyurethane models incorporate telltale contours, they&#039;re also simplified and streamlined to the verge of becoming abstract, making us pause as we sift through the remaining details in a much slower and deliberate act of recognition.  Stinnett adds to the complexity of this task by casting her subjects in both bright light and dark shadow. She also manipulates the focal plane of each portrait, intensifying the impact of some details while obscuring many others.  What results are ticklishly elusive, even ghostly images that gleam with inner life and beauty. But they also feel like visitors from some strange and far-off world.  Erickson can be reached at 247-4783 and  merickson@dailypress.com"
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