Posts from ‘Photography’
Chicago, Chicago—-That city plans to bump up its international arts scene by repeating its successful “Gallery Weekend Chicago” this fall. The event is a compact arts festival, targeted to attract the nation’s highest end art collectors and curators to the city, and expose them in a very pointed way to the best of Chicago’s trending art. Here’s what “Gallery Weekend Chicago” is all about…..
A dozen of Chicago’s best contemporary art galleries participate. Visiting curators and collectors are chauffered to each of the galleries and museums for private tours; tours are led by Chicago’s own curators and arts specialists–arts historians, I would hope, and museum directors. Reservations at the city’s finest restaurants are secured, special menus planned. Private VIP parties happen. Chicago’s own prominent collectors help guide the process, mingle with the weekend’s guests, and sing the praises of local arts.
Chicago throws in a private boat tour. Jackson Hole’s version might arrange a series of educational expeditions into Yellowstone, Grand Teton National Park, and other regions. Jackson Hole’s exclusive dude ranches and collectors could open their doors. Eco-tours, river floats…you get the picture. Chicago has an official hotel for their event; we have so many great lodges that we might be able to rotate them annually. And why stop here? Let’s reach out to our friends in Cody~~~the Buffalo Bill Historical Museum, Simpson-Gallagher Gallery and other arts specialists would be partners. Schedule artists’ studio tours, arrange pack trips. Dubois is pretty cool!
Isn’t this just so lush?
Heather James Fine Art has some new works in they’d like you to see. This Spring-like, exuberant abstract oil-on-canvas entitled Revised and Expanded, is by contemporary artist John Millei (b. 1958). He’s a Los Angeles painter, a native to that city. His work, often whimsical, caught my eye, and I did a little lookin’ around.
Millei’s paintings are expansive; this work measures 36 x 42 inches. Writer Donald Kuspit, in writing about Millei’s “Maritime” series of works—painted some five to ten years after this work—described the artist’s canvases as “enormous, magnificent paintings, mural-like in their panoramic scope and imposing scale, and executed in what can only be called a grand Abstract-Expressionistic manner.”
Mari Andrews’ Like a Language and Rakudo Naito’s Nature Constructed share an opening reception at the Tayloe Piggott Gallery on Friday, February 10, 5-8:00 pm. The white light in the work conveys winter’s soft delicacy, its silence and ability to allow us to see new the shy details of bare branches, spores, and the simple lines of a leaf. Fluid femininity and structural systems wrought from nature are explored. The show remains up through March 27, 2012.
I’m going for it here: Andrews’ constructions of wire, pine needles, delicate branches and what looks, in press materials, like lichen, are certainly–at least in part—meditations on women’s reproductive organs. Nature as feminine. Tubular constructs terminate in mossy, circular portals. Flattened ovary and fallopian-shaped sculptures are heavily textured and the color of shells mixed with seaweed; expanded hearts. White, lacy blossoms float airily. Beaker-shaped pods and vessels intertwine—the fairest of mermaid necklaces. Indeed, Andrews’ work is highly intimate. Continue Reading
The National Museum of Wildlife Art’s focus on Canadian painter George McLean’s mysterious, engaging work continues. To welcome the New Year, the Museum’s first “First Sunday” takes place Sunday, January 1, 2012. “Wild About Our ‘Living Landscape,’ ” runs from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. that day, and celebrates draws both McLean’s “Living Landscape” exhibition and the wildlife and landscape surrounding the museum’s new outdoor sculpture trail.
Planned activities include a chance to create flying paper raptors, a Marmot Tunnel Maze and Slide on the Sculpture Trail, the children’s films “Moles – What is out there?” and “Critter Quest” courtesy of the JH Wildlife Film Festival, and complimentary refreshments. Free, open to all area locals, all ages.
How I wish I was a kid!
January’s Mix’d Media event, “The Edge…” takes place January 10 from 6 – 9 p.m. While wildlife art is beautiful, the evening will emphasise its importance to conservation, as explored through two current museum exhibitions, The Last Ocean: Antarctica’s Ross Sea Photographs by John Weller and In the Spotlight: Mark Eberhard’s “On the Edge.” Married musicians Aaron Davis and Seadar Rose will perform live musical interpretation of the night’s themes. Cover charge is $5. www.wildlifeart.org
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Layers of Silence, is one of several new images in Jackson photographer David Brookover’s ever-expanding Platinum Palladium Print collection. He’s into it! I did not have time, darn it, to get to see these prints before leaving town for the holidays, but I have seen all of Brookover’s platinum prints to date. They are exquisite, and I recommend a visit to his gallery, located in Gaslight Alley—you’ll find many of the new prints in the gallery’s redesigned downstairs space.
“It took us a few years but we finally found the right Kozo paper for this image,” says Brookover on his Facebook page. It will be arriving [soon], after Randolph Laub puts his finishing touch on the print’s one-of-a-kind frame. Thank you Corey Allen at Hidden Light LLC for all the work you put into this image.” Layers of Silence will measure approximately 22″x 42″.” This is a very limited edition of seven, with print #1 already sold. Edition of 7, number one is already sold. www.brookovergallery.com
Last spring Jackson photographer David Brookover unveiled what is sure to become one of his signature photographs, an iconic bromoil of a bison. Now, on the eve of Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival 2011, Brookover is introducing seven new platinum palladium prints. Traditionally, Brookover has favored landscapes and ancient architecture. For over a year he’s been shooting the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem’s indigenous wildlife and Park habitats, redefining nature photography.
The downstairs of Brookover’s Jackson gallery has been transformed into a visitors’ sanctum. “It’s a meditative space,” Brookover says. “People come down and spend 30, 45 minutes. It’s calm; upstairs has more bustle, with the activity of Gaslight Alley and Town Square just outside. On the lower level it’s cool and quiet. When folks discover these images they want to remain with the photographs.”
Brookover’s wildlife images are crafted using traditional, ancient methods and materials. Japanese printing papers are made as they were in the 1st century. These fabrics enhance Brookover’s sophisticated, minimalist compositions, resulting in a thoroughly refreshed wildlife photography style.
Brookover talked about his bromoil process.
“It starts with silver gelatin; you strip away the silver and you’re left with a matrix of gelatin and paper. “You ‘go in’ with lithographic
pure inks. Using a special Japanese brush I tap it, brush it, work it for about an hour. I let the image set overnight, throw it in water, wipe off excess ink, and then repeat that sequence…for four more days. And usually, after four days, I’m not satisfied! So we play with different exposures, work on the negative, and I think about how to apply ink once as I get further along. We started on the Buffalo bromoil a few days before Superbowl Sunday and finished it April 15—over two months to get it right. It’s a challenge for printers! But we got it.”
A bromoil image of the Great Wall of China’s has striking perspective, its solidity and details palpable. Brookover creates thick atmosphere using a brush and a density of inks to build up shadows and enhance texture. “When silver gelatin papers were developed, they were popular because it was so much easier than bromoil,” notes Brookover. “But I love the process; there’s a certain masculinity to it.”
A photograph of Yellowstone’s Firehole River is as mystic as a sacred shrine. In another shot, two young great horned owls nestle in a cottonwood’s gnarled, sheltering trunk. “Silent Storm” is a hauntingly beautiful image of a Yellowstone bison bearing up under heavy winter snows. The animal is enveloped in hot spring mists.
Fans of Grand Teton National Park’s Bears 399 and 610 will want to see Brookover’s series of photographs of those two bears and their cubs. Like pages from a private ancestral album, the platinums portray touching family moments. The series is intimate, playful, and timeless. On a wall nearby, a wolf appears to be walking across the surface of the Madison River’s glittering waters.
“These platinums and bromoils are a team effort,” says Brookover. “We love exploring historical processes. That’s where we’ve been, and that’s where we’re going.”
I recommend stopping in to see David Brookover’s new platinum and bromoil images during Fall Arts Festival. Palates & Palettes night, the gallery will raise funds to benefit the Teton Raptor Center; Raptor Center avian “residents” will be on hand. For more information, phone 307.732.3988. Brookover will launch his new website this week! Stay tuned! www.brookovergallery.com
