Northern California Artists: Matt Black

Matt Black, Saint's Day Celebration, Oaxaca, date unknown

Matt Black photographs the lives of agricultural workers in California’s San Joaquin Valley and Oaxaca, Mexico. That those lives are difficult the photographs leave little doubt, but their principal subject is not the difficulty but the community that persists in spite or because of it. And although Black’s connection with and affection for that community are also not his subject, or at least not overtly, they are plainly visible in the pictures, which are grainy, black and white, and haunting.

(thanks to olivier laude)