On Tuesday, Apr. 2, the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art hosted an Artists in Conversation event in the Kennedy Center for Theatre and the Studio Arts’ Barrett Lab Theater. Artists Rhona Bitner and Lisa Kereszi each gave a presentation on their artwork, which was followed by a Q&A discussion moderated by Katherine Alcauskas, the Collection’s Curator and Exhibitions Manager at the Wellin Museum.

Both Bitner and Kereszi have work featured in the Wellin Museum’s newest exhibit, “Theaters of Fiction,” which explores how theaters and and other entertainment spaces contribute to the experiences and responses to those environments.

Bitner presented first after Tracy L. Adler (the Johnson-Pote Director at the Wellin Museum) and Alcauskas gave their introductions. Bitner said she sees parallels between photography and theater in that “one enters a black box and an image appears.” This idea gave her the direction of where she thought her art should go. From there, she chose to take the idea of the theater and investigate it on a 2-D surface using a camera. When Bitner pursues a new project, she says she wants it to explore an aspect of the theater, as her professional goal is to create a gesamtkunstwerk, or a total work of art that encapsulates “the theatrical experience.”

At the beginning of Bitner’s photographic career, she focused on the idea of the performer in the spotlight. Bitner chose her first subject matter to be the circus because in that environment, the performer and the idea of the performer are more extreme. Bitner said that with “CIRCUS,” she and the performers had an anonymous relationship with each other, as the circus troupe only regarded her as an audience member and Bitner only regarded them as performers.

After “CIRCUS,” Bitner made “CLOWN,” a series of eleven lifesize images featuring three clowns. Bitner said that the photos were thoughtful in that she spent a lot of time making each exposure and that there is a lot of empathy between the photographer and the clown. The only instruction the clowns were given was to not smile, as their face makeup already portrayed that expression.

The other major projects that Bitner referred to during her presentation were “STAGE” and “LISTEN.” “STAGE” examines the presence and absence of what is about to happen or has just happened on the stage and explores the space in and around the theater itself. Bitner defined “LISTEN” as an encyclopedia project about the inner architecture of American music venues. She said that the project was her attempt to photograph sound by capturing the memories of sound, like the placemarkers of certain events.

Kereszi’s presentation followed Bitner’s. She started her lecture by comparing and contrasting her work to Bitner. Kereszi said they were in similar in that both view theater as a camera. However, Kereszi stated that her work diverges from Bitner’s in that Kereszi photographs not just the theater itself, but also the spaces surrounding it, such as the hallways, doors, and seats. Kereszi’s work probes not only the transformative and escapist qualities of theaters, but also the mundane and banal.

Kereszi grew up outside of Philadelphia, P.A., where her father was in charge of the family junkyard. This upbringing ingrained in Kereszi the idea that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” As such, she is interested in the places where the “fantasy” fails, and uses elements of her photographs to “put” those cracks and failures on stage. Kereszi likes that she can take something that society deems ugly or not worth looking at and turn it into something else.

Kereszi’s work is almost exclusively focused on theaters, but she has also photographed amusement parks, bars, haunted houses, hotels, and strip clubs. In her discussion, Kereszi admitted that her work started as an investigation of nocturnal spaces, but she quickly realized that it was more about escapism that nighttime or the dark. She felt that her personal psychology needed to understand why people would want to escape reality. Therefore, her work reveals that places that are designed to portray fantasy are pretty grim. Kereszi uses daylight, the flash of the camera, angles, and certain objects within these spaces to highlight this idea. The photos that Kereszi featured in her presentation were from her “Fun and Games,” “The Party’s Over,” “Governors Island,” and “Fantasies” serieses.

During the panel, Bitner and Kereszi discussed multiple topics, such as the transformative nature of the camera, the dynamics of looking, research, permission and access to spaces, how they choose whether or not to identify who or where they take their photos, and the future of their work.

On Thursday, Apr. 4, Bitner and Kereszi will lead a gallery walkthrough of “Theaters of Fiction” at 4:30 PM in the Wellin Museum.