Amber Maalouf and Ashlie Chavez · The Onion Fields
Opening reception
Sept. 21, 2024 | 6–10pm
On view through Nov. 3, 2024
Artist Bios
Amber Maalouf and Ashlie Chavez are identical twins and collaborative photographers. They began shooting film at the early age of 14, processing and developing in their parents’ garage with inherited equipment from their mother, a professional portrait photographer. This would lead to their first significant body of work, ‘Symbiotic,’ that set them apart in the sense that, while they strived for independence, they realized their strongest work was done together.
They each have a BFA in Creative Photography with a concentration in Alternative Processing. With a sole analogue upbringing yet now thriving in a digital world, they’ve been able to fuse mediums to maintain growing commercial careers while keeping their hands-on integrity.
After college, Amber moved to LA, working both in-house and independently, teaching herself every photographic field under the sun. Ashlie had her only son, River, raised him alone and opened an online art store, Art For Your Walls, selling her own work. Today, Amber and Ashlie work together commercially and in fine art. With their book and Compound YV exhibition ‘The Onion Fields’ now coming to a close, they have many series in their sights — the ones in progress focus on anxiety in everyday life and their Chihuahuan heritage.
Work/Collection Statement:
‘The Onion Fields’ is a story that began long before twin sisters Amber Maalouf and Ashlie Chavez started to document themselves in the farm town of Orland, California. This series depicts only a small narrative of their grandparents' lives, indigenous to Nuevo Leon, Mexico, otherwise known as Regiomontanos.
As teenagers, the twins began taking the train and bus to Orland, a Northern California town a couple hours south from the Oregon border. Originally, their grandparents, Pablo and Carmen Minor, immigrated from Monterrey, Mexico to the Coachella Valley to farm, then later to Orland so that Pablo could keep his promise of caring for his sister Luisa after her husband passed.
This move would start the laborious treks in efforts to maintain a relationship with their grandparents and later assist their grandmother in her last years battling dementia. When asked “Why are these photographs so special?” Ashlie and Amber responded in unison, “No one else could have done this.” They were not referring to their photographic skills or devotion, but to their will of prioritizing documentation within the lives of people far richer in sacrifices than they had ever known.
The title ‘The Onion Fields’ was chosen for both allegorical and literal importance. The first Minor farm cultivated onions. For the past 15 years, Amber and Ashlie have peeled back layers of family history in earnest dialogue and photographs that have not only taught them about their grandparents’ true sacrifice but also about their unique relationship as twins.