Thoss constructs panoramas by stringing together photographs taken over extended time, with subjects often appearing more than once in the same image. From unscripted laughter to spontaneous intimacy, Thoss captures and arranges these moments into expansive images that defy periphery. The resulting works thrive on motion and instability, panoramas that not only extend and rework memories of family life, but celebrate them.
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“ ... Thoss’s work deepens our sense of the mysteries of family life: the richness of it, the variety of it, and the ways time and space, kinship and love, converge and join people to one another.
The word panorama suggests breadth, balance, and wholeness. The roots of the word are Greek: pan - for all, horam for view or sight. The shape of the word is regular, the consonants and vowels alternating invariably. In the history of photography, a panorama is typically an unpopulated landscape or a stretch of city (Josef Sudek’s Prague panoramas).
Thoss’s panoramas are different. Characteristically, they show several people. They are unstable, often combining multiple images registered from one minute to a quarter of an hour apart. They thrive on movement, people jostling in close proximity to one another. They represent an extended moment – celebrate it ... ”
Full Essay
Paul Elie
The word panorama suggests breadth, balance, and wholeness. The roots of the word are Greek: pan - for all, horam for view or sight. The shape of the word is regular, the consonants and vowels alternating invariably. In the history of photography, a panorama is typically an unpopulated landscape or a stretch of city (Josef Sudek’s Prague panoramas).
Thoss’s panoramas are different. Characteristically, they show several people. They are unstable, often combining multiple images registered from one minute to a quarter of an hour apart. They thrive on movement, people jostling in close proximity to one another. They represent an extended moment – celebrate it ... ”
Full Essay
Paul Elie