Stewart Frederick Lewis

The foreign gaze has historically had the ability to lend weight and gravity to the everyday. Like someone discovering a texture or a flavor for the first time, the eye of the photographer who arrives, observes, and settles into a territory reveals the transformative potential of what is always in plain sight and, because of its apparent normality, often goes unnoticed.

In Under the Sun, Stewart Frederick Lewis presents a body of photographic work centered on a seemingly minor space within the urban landscape: rooftops. Indispensable to the functioning of any home and yet relegated to residual zones, these surfaces crown the city’s architecture and concentrate a fundamental part of everyday life. Through his lens, rooftops are revealed as thresholds: spaces that stand apart both from the bustle of the street and from the intimacy of domestic interiors, becoming open planes for passage, improvised rest, and direct exposure to the sun.

— Casa de Cultura San Rafael