The next photograph I would like to discuss is named “Three Fans”. Also on a large scale, this print punches with color. The photograph is predominately an intense green and is trimmed with splashes of blue, red, and brown. It features a street-side; double story building- its stories separated by three large, industrial fans. The bottom story has an open doorway on the far left, a crumbled wall littering the sidewalk, a set of closed double doors, and a boarded up window. There are remnants of old signs ripped off of the structure’s walls, and graffiti is scrawled along both the wall and doors. One legible phrase reads “Se Vende”, meaning “It is sold”. Though it reads that it is a sold property, the bottom floor looks abandoned. Going up past the industrial fans, the second story holds a balcony enclosed by another ironwork railing and three large windows that span up the entire story. There is a single line of laundry out to dry- a beach towel, cut-off jean shorts, and a pair of red, satin panties in the center. Though it seems like someone inhabits the second floor by the presence of freshly cleaned laundry, somehow I get the feeling that no one is there. There is a birdcage on the far left of the balcony, but it is empty. Peering in the large balcony windows, shadows of wayward furniture is visible, but no humans can be seen. Even though the photograph is bright and colorful, the absence of life gives me a ghostly feeling.
Eastman makes a reference to time in two of his photographs- “Isabella’s Two Chairs 1999” and “Isabella’s Two Chairs 2000”. Looking at the photos on opposite sides of the gallery, you can see the development of elements within the frames as a year has gone by. In “Isabella’s Two Chairs 1999” two tattered, askew upholstered chairs sit off-centered in a large room. The chair on the left fosters a glass soda or beer bottle and the seat is covered in fragments of plaster. The chair on the right appears more kempt than its neighbor. Natural light enters half of the room from a walkway on the left side of the photograph, shining on the dirty marbled tiling. The environment surrounding the pair of chairs is a very big room with a towering back wall and a high ceiling. The room feels even larger when you notice that the chairs seem to sit alone under a grand chandelier. Taking up a little more than half of the frame, this black glass chandelier dresses up the space though it is absent of light bulbs. It’s as if the room belonged to an aristocrat long gone, leaving his or her estate to weather and disintegrate unaccompanied. The walls behind the chairs are peeled and cracked; the top right corner even had holes of wall missing altogether. The ceiling looks as if it might not be able to hold that grandiose chandelier much longer, its surface stained and withering away. The colors within the frame of this photograph are lifeless shades of black, browns, grey, and faded olive green. The dull, deteriorating appearance of this space gives the imagination room to wonder what this large space might have been used for in the past, what great events and parties it held, and the residents of the space were like. The room changes slightly over a year’s time in Eastman’s “Isabella’s Two chairs 2000”. A solitary line of laundry brings life to the otherwise dead interior. The suggestion that from a year ago, someone is living in this space can also be seen in the set of chairs. Once overtaken by the large light fixture and off-centered, the chairs have taken on a new function in this photograph- facing inward toward each other and placed in the middle of the room. The irony of this “newer” photograph is that even though you get the notion that someone has moved into the old space, it is still rundown, and falling apart. This brings light to the poor situation of the country and its ability to remain vintage and unkempt in the modern world.
