Hot Mess

Tim Roda's photographs are creepy. Constantly, a child is shown in situations that have an incredible potential for wrongness. Your hide prickles looking at them; you're ready to be upset. They never really are wrong, though; it's just that the images look like the sets of scary movies, with Hitchcock's terror-black shadows and swinging-lightbulb whites. Something about the carefully constructed scenes suggests horror, but the compositions are often, in reality, simple family scenes — Roda uses his wife and son, as well as himself, as his main subjects. Why is daddy in a straitjacket, kneeling in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari kitchen? We'll never know, but it's nice of junior to pour water in his mouth like that. At "Family Album," the large-scale work also shows its art geek side, demonstrating the artist's careful attention to scissored edges, chemical spillage, and other elements of the handmade photo print.
Oct. 2-Nov. 15, 2008