Bloomfield is not the kind of place you'd expect to find a blue-chip art exhibition; yet, there we find "The Angel and the Last Child on Earth" at Box Heart Gallery. The exhibition is every bit the sort one would see at a major art museum: slick, sophisticated, well-polished works that are absolutely moving in every sense.
"This is the only show we've had in eight years where people have just come in randomly and cried," says gallery owner Nicole Capozzi. "Three people just last week came in, stood here and cried."
Why? Because Norwegian photographer Reinhardt Sobye has found a way to peel back the innocence of childhood and reveal the deepest of emotions, ones we all have felt in one way or another in our young lives, feelings of loneliness, loss and despair.
This is the artist's first solo show in United States. Except for his work being widely accepted and exhibited in Japan, Sobye's work has rarely been shown outside of his native Norway where he lives in a remote village called Sand among the fjords in Rogaland.
In the gallery, five large-scale portraits stand out first among the 14 total pieces on display. They are large, and each features a larger-than-life portrait of a young prepubescent child.
These are digital prints of photographs that Sobye has taken and manipulated, both in the computer and on top of each with charcoal and pastel. The effect is subtle, like an acid wash. But it adds to the emotions visible on the children's faces. These are not happy pictures.
Sobye's children are unguarded and innocent. It is clear by the artist's treatment that these urchins are living in poverty -- a result, as he writes, of "economic decisions made by government's misuse of power."
Although these children are anonymous in this context, here he illuminates them with compassion, revealing the undeniable alienation of people low on the social ladder.
Another portrait nearby has a very specific story. Titled "The Abduction" it features a young teenage Asian girl blindfolded, her head tilted back slightly, as if letting go in submission.
From 1977 to 1983, it is believed that the North Korean government authorized the kidnapping of Japanese citizens for the purpose of espionage. Although only 16 citizens are officially recognized (eight men and eight women), it is believed that there may have been as many as 80 Japanese abducted and forced to help train North Korean spies to pass as Japanese citizens.
Most of the missing were in their 20s. But the youngest, Megumi Yokota was 13 when she disappeared in November 1977 from the Japanese west coast city of Niigata. The North Korean government claims that she committed suicide on March 13, 1994, but her parents do not believe that.
On one of Sobye's trips to Japan for an exhibition, he met them. They gave him the photograph featured in the piece.
"Her parents never gave up hope, and in searching for the truth, they forced the case to become part of 'Big Politics'," he writes. "In Japan, they are revered for they perseverance, strength and love for their daughter."
Thus, he says, Megumi can be seen as a Joan of Arc of our time: "a saint, an angel ... her sufferings elevated ... providing faith and passion to millions."
As with that piece, sometimes Sobye borrows from the past to create his remarkable images. "Hertervig as a Young Boy" for example, features a Norwegian painter Lars Hertervig (1830-1902) in his early teenage years. Looking into the eyes of the portrait, one can see the anguish of a tortured soul, and rightly so. Hertervig was plagued with schizophrenia just two years out of art school and ultimately died in poverty.
Others have paid homage to Hertervig before, such as Norwegian author and dramatist Jon Fosse who addressed Hertervig's tragic life in his 1995 novel "Melancholia I." But in Sobye's piece, the pain and suffering of the subject is so readily available, so palpable, that it is undeniable the mental torture this person would suffer in later life.
Visitors to Boxheart have been privy to Sobye's work before. He has been featured in three of their international exhibitions, some examples of which are in a print bin off to the side of the main gallery. Flipping through them will reveal the artist's deep insight into the human condition.
For example, in works from his series "The Last Defense," Sobye unclothes the reality of war and oppression in all its nakedness; in beautifully composed space that seamlessly combines photographed elements into scenes of surpassing strangeness. Thus, he has a remarkable ability to beckon the viewer into vast, false structures that act as mirrors held up to civilization.
This is an artist of undeniable talent and remarkable intuition, the kind that rivals anyone getting attention on an international scale. So, be sure to check out his work while you can.
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