Brent Kollock: Stories from the streets of Mexico

Woman offering prayers
Photograph © Brent Kollock

Deep in the hills and valleys of Mexico lie spellbinding tales of the people that have inherited the secrets of living in ancestral tradition and newly adopted modern ways.  Quietly capturing these stories is the everlasting curiosity and talent of life and street photographer Brent Kollock.  

His travels have led him to the everyday lives of market vendors, street circuses, performers, carnivals, children, street food, religious ceremonies, Prehispanic rituals, and even burials.  Different regions have provided a background of photographs in their purest form, setting the stories in their most natural, vulnerable, and unobtrusive capture of a reality that can be seen today.  It’s a stark, black and white vérité style with subjects stopped in an eternal moment in the Mexican states of Jalisco, Nayarit, Colima, Guanajuato, and Puebla. 

Tuba Player
Photograph © Brent Kollock

Photographing everyday life confronts Kollock to see and live like a local.  To acquire a delicate sensibility to his surroundings and understand the customs of the natives and the realm of their triumphs and hardships of survival and celebration of life.  People commune with animals, with the past and the present, with the underworld, the dead and the living.  Their food becomes ritual and ceremony becomes blurred with dreams.

Armed with such sensibility, Kollock’s craft and skillful command of the camera, have led him to closeness with his subject to chronicle moments as they happen.  In many of the photographs, his subjects’ eyes seem to hypnotize and speak to the viewer which can be interpreted as an invitation to look in.

Children performing Pastorela
© Brent Kollock

Brent Kollock is an artist of life, a poet, an artist documenting on 35mm film and digital capture.  They’re scenes of relevance and passing time.  
There’s an almost spiritual quality to his photographs.  His images are filled with the beauty and absurdity that never fail to evoke a strange yet intimate sense of humanity.  

Kollock’s perseverance to capture humanity has led to an exploration of the significance of the stories he has brought from far away lands.  At the heart of his stories, lies the human spirit and the quest of seeking peace and harmony.  A quest to establish meaningful connections to people and animals and a clear representation of who we are.

Market Musicians (Abuelos)
© Brent Kollock

Kollock’s body of work is of light and darkness and assumes the perspective of his subjects.  There is a fundamental narrative of struggle, survival, joy, and even oppression and freedom.  His subjects emerge from the shadows and they belong to their societies, they may be solitary or in groups of families, but all have intricate and fascinating stories to tell.  They’re a reminder that all of humanity has a fundamental need for expression. And the photographs serve as a lasting monument to his talent.

Artist, Photographer, Writer Brent Kollock

Brent Kollock presents A World Away Just Next Door: Street Photography in Mexico in a solo exhibition at the Latino Cultural Center, Dallas.  Fine art black and white prints are selected and curated by legendary artist and activist Viola Delgado.

The exhibit is free and open to the public on November 22 through January 4th, 2019.

2600 Live Oak Street - Dallas, Texas 75204

For more on Brent Kollock or to purchase his art photography books visit:

https://www.brentkollock.com

Written by Leticia Alaniz

© 2019