Glorious Mundane David Leonard finds gems among the ordinary. by DAVID HALL No subject is fuller of implications than the mundane world! -- Eudora Welty The most convenient route to the Southside Gallery in Oxford, Mississippi, includes a long stretch of Lamar Avenue, where urban blight, herds of semis, and all those lovely industrial parks make for an extremely anti-aesthetic experience. After taking in Southside's current exhibit, however, I am certain that photographer David Leonard could find something worthwhile to capture with his lens even on that ugly thoroughfare. After all, the photo Payne's Bar B Q, Memphis depicts the mess at a meal's end, the flotsam of a devoured sandwich and a wadded up napkin on a dirty paper plate, accompanied by a Grape Nehi can. It ain't pretty. But it makes for a beautiful photograph. The juicy colors as well as the delicate play of light eclipse any impulse to dismiss the image simply for its mundane subject matter. This celebration of the ordinary is at the heart of Leonard's art, whether the image is of a dilapidated drive-in or a parking-lot minister. As in the case of the eaten sandwich, the images all seem to catch things in a state of flux, eternalizing the transitory. If this territory sounds familiar, perhaps it's because those sentiments could describe the work of William Eggleston, whose one-man show in 1976 at the Museum of Modern Art signaled the arrival of color photography to fine art. Several regional fine-art photographers, including Leonard, Huger Foote, and Octavia Sharp, are exploring this realm of the personal documentary pioneered by Eggleston three decades ago. Anyone, anywhere, who uses color photography as a fine-art medium must tip his or her hat to Eggleston. It would seem especially daunting to do so in his hometown, but Leonard takes it all in stride. "I owe a lot to Bill," says Leonard, who counts Eggleston a friend and mentor. "I have looked at quite a few piles of his photographs, and he has looked at several piles of mine," he adds. A similarity between the two is immediately evident in their preoccupation with everyday subject matter. Whereas Eggleston points his camera into his freezer or under the bed, Leonard aims his up at an awning or down at his feet. It appears nothing is too hackneyed for either of them to shoot, and some images seem to have been caught off-the-cuff, in mid-stride, or even awkwardly. It is that sense of immediacy, of the fleeting moment, that draws one into the pictures. Another similarity between the two is the straightforward, deadpan titles. Leonard is strictly utilitarian with Gas Pump in Red, Illinois and Tissue Head Girl in Pink, Memphis. This is a function of the artist not wanting to impose a singular meaning in the mind of the viewer. Says Leonard, "Early on [Eggleston] and Szarkowski [curator at MOMA in the mid-'70s] said that photographs didn't have to mean anything," and he insists his own pictures "are not intended to have any symbolic purpose." Out With the Tide, Sag Harbor, NY finds Leonard getting a little more whimsical with his titles. The photograph records two cheesy silk-flower crucifixes in red, pink, and white discarded in a blue garbage can alongside an empty Tide box. There is something wonderfully ironic about seeing those kitschy-colored religious icons when their nearest chromatic cousin is the familiar orange box with the blue logo. The aforementioned Gas Pump in Red, in contrast to the dark humor of Out With the Tide, is decidedly stoic in its formalist arrangement of pungent reds on a field of grays, so much so that it is practically abstract. The subject matter is about as glum as you can get. The scene is a self-service gas station, the camera is pointed downward so only a portion of objects are captured within the frame: the corner of a car door here, the front of a pickup there, an empty brake-fluid bottle. The image is compelling because, within the confines of the picture plane, the viewer relates the disparate red objects to one another against a neutral background of gray, de-emphasizing their thing-ness. Leonard makes clear that his previous work in motion pictures and music videos influences much of his art and that accounts for the implied movement in many of his photos. I would add that his technical know-how is also reflected in the artist's adherence to a level of expertise with regard to the prints and presentation. Leonard exhibited much of this work last year at the Photographers' Gallery in London. This is his first major show in the region. It would be a shame to miss it. Through September 23rd at Southside Gallery. You can e-mail David Hall at letters@memphisflyer.com.