PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Kelly & Weber Fine Art will be exhibiting the unique photography of Charmaine Caire in her upcoming exhibit, Then and Now. Caire's approach to image-making begins with gathering objects of late 20th century detritus like plastic toys and other objects that were briefly treasured by their original owners and then quickly consigned to the disposal stream of our society. Juxtaposing these objects in tableau and dioramas, Caire captures the emotional and social consequences of an instant-gratification, trend-focused and short-attention span society.

She builds sets and staged scenes under the heat of old Hollywood lights, gelled to throw color, working with large format film cameras and exposing shadows to create photographs that look at our society through a past lens, foreshadowing the future. Her work also comments on current politics through humorous arrangement of objects and her refined sense of composition. Caire refers to these works as her "Stop and Thinks," stating that she is not interested in anything more than to get her audience to do exactly that. Just as advertisements flash their agenda with bright colors, sex, and other attention getting attributes to get us to consider their product, these "Stop and Thinks" are meant to grab our attention in the same manner as adverts do in our fast paced, product oriented society.

Born near the shadows of Trenton, New Jersey's famous sign "Trenton Makes, the World Takes," and raised in post World War II Levittown, Caire is a graduate of Tyler School of Art. Her work has been shown by the Woodmere Art Museum's first Triennial of Photography, the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, The Noyes Museum, and noted by the New Yorker and as a Pew Finalist.