The Mariah Robertson show opening at Marvelli Gallery today collects her splashy photograms — photos created without a camera. The Yale alumni has been holing herself up in a darkroom with random objects and materials like photographic paper, film, and drawings, all of which she cuts up and dyes with chemicals, then exposes to various light forms to create photos that could also pass as trompe l’oeil paintings. Strewn through with palm trees and the occasional naked torso, and saturated in tropical hues, Robertson’s series feels like images from a film-noir set — or maybe plans for a new, gaudy, alluring Art Deco mansion in Miami.
