Posts from ‘Photography’
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
The Jackson Hole Art Association kicks off its Summer Exhibitions this week, when artists Mark Newport, Jean Laughton and Taylor Glenn present their work. A reception for all three shows takes place Friday, June 3, 5:30 pm at the Center for the Arts. The shows remain up through July 29, 2011.
Mark Newport’s Sweatermen are giant, knit superhero costumes. Hand made knit goods are especially memory-provoking and connective. My own mother still knits, and a few Christmases ago she created a series of knit snakes. She gave them little black yarn smiles and tiny hats, lined them with panty hose and filled them with birdseed. She’d make a fortune turning them out by the dozen, but she indulged her vision. The snakes are a limited series.
That kind of tactile sensory stimulation, along with every child’s adoration of superheroes, combine to make these intriguing life-size costumes. An empty, dangling superhero suit begs to be filled out; we imagine ourselves inside each one, or a faceless, perfect somebody beneath the hoods. As I write, I realize we adults—particularly baby boomers, the first generation to make anti-aging a daily pursuit—are still drawn to comic book idols. We flock to the movies to see Ironman, Superman, the Green Hornet, Spiderman, Batman.
Artist and educator Mark Newport is the Artist-in-Residence and Head of Fiber at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He will give an artist’s talk that day, June 11, at 12:00 p.m. in the Art Association’s Main Gallery.
Taylor Glenn’s touching and beautiful images of China’s Mandarin Green Plastics Company capture assembly workers in an artificial flower factory. That fact does not minimize the poetry in these photographs.
Far Chang humanizes a product Americans buy en masse; these flowers are somebody’s daily art. “We rarely give thought to how these products are made and the individuals who are responsible. These images are a personal and quiet observation of daily life at this factory,” says the Art Association.
Glenn will give a gallery talk on Thursday, June 7, at 7:00 pm.
Jean Laughton’s My Ranching Life caps off the summer shows with dynamic images of Western South Dakota ranching life; this American life. Laughton took these photographs in the Badlands of Interior, South Dakota. Laughton studied photography, simultaneously adapting to the hard tack of daily cowboy life. These are large-scale panoramic photographs, capturing the West’s superhero ranching lifestyle.
http://www.artassociation.org/exhibitions/index.html
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An esteemed colleague, a friend with an interest in urban planning and who works in the real estate industry on a global level, has sent me a list of books written by his own “urban planning heroes,” with synopses:
Design with Nature by Ian McHarg – McHarg taught that buildings and landscapes must respect the natural environment and the ecosystem.
Death and Life of American Cities by Jane Jacobs – Jacobs wrote that “eyes and feet on the street” leading to direct human interaction is the key to successful neighborhoods. Auto-centric, civil-engineering-driven approaches kill neighborhoods.
City in History by Lewis Mumford – Mumford wrote that cities represent the best that civilization has to offer. Most of the advancements in the long history of humankind came from the exchange of ideas and commerce in cities. He valued the historic legacy of cities over the post-modernist destruction of the reminders of who we are and where we came from.
Triumph of the City by Ed Glaeser – Glaeser is a young Harvard economist who just appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He writes that cities are one of the best inventions in humankind and that they are the key to living efficiently on the planet. He is a bit of an anti-planner in that he says planners often get it wrong (sprawl zoning from the 50s was built on bad assumptions that everyone wants a half-acre lot and a two-car garage and no sidewalks). But his ideas about how people express their desires in the real estate marketplace are really intriguing. And he does think that the marketplace would demand higher density, which is also more efficient, if sprawl zoning could be changed.
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Coming to a gallery near you:
Altamira Fine Art welcomes Montana artist Ted Waddell and contemporary landscape painter Louisa McElwain, at an opening reception Thursday, June 2, 6-8:00 pm. Their joint show, Good Country, remains up through June 19. www.altamiraart.com
The Diehl Gallery celebrates its 10th Anniversary on Thursday, June 30. The 10th Anniversay Fête happens 5-9:00 pm at the Gallery. This summer, Diehl features artists Hung Liu, Ashley Collins and Sheila Norgate. The gallery will also travel to Art in San Diego September 1-4th. Cool! www.diehlgallery.com
Trio Fine Art begins summer hours on June 1. The gallery–which features the work of Lee Carlman Riddell, September Vhay, Kathryn Mapes Turner and Jennifer Hoffman–will be open Wednesday through Saturday, noon-6:00 pm. Stop by for tea. Shows throughout the summer! www.triofineart.com
The Jackson Hole Art Auction closes its 2011 Auction consignment period June 1. If you want to consign and you are reading this post May 31, 2011, you’ve got 24 hours to contact Lucy P. Grogan by phoning 866.549.9278. www.jacksonholeartauction.com
Interior, a site-specific installation by Jackson Hole artist Suzanne Morlock, is part of “Project Space”, an exhibition at Queens College Art Center in Flushing, New York. On exhibit through June 30, 2011, the work is Morlock’s interpretation of what a “terrestrial landscape formed of spheres of newspaper-yarn might look like.”
Knitted newspaper curtains cover ‘Project Space’ windows, and Interior “compels viewers to press their noses against the room’s windowpanes in order to better see the interior of the room.” It’s all part of Morlock’s quest to engage viewers and elicit questions about space and its properties.
Morlock’s glittery gold knit Sweater is set for installation at California’s Charles Schulz Museum. For more information about Suzanne Morlock and her work, visit www.suzannemorlock.com.
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Just weeks after a massive earthquake and tsunami obliterated lives, livlihoods and landscapes in Japan, a group of international photographers has initiated the 3/11 Tsunami Photo Project. Established to aid the people of Japan, the project is available in an iPad
application platform.
A statement from journalistic photographer Ryo Kameyama, taken from 3/11′s website:
“When the earthquake struck Japan, I was in the mountains in Mexico, and many villagers asked me, “Is your family all right?”
When I returned to town and saw the nuclear power plant exploding with white smoke on TV, I felt that it was time to return to Japan.
Spring had not yet arrived in the devastated areas, and when it snowed I was freezing cold. The tsunami ripped apart families and memories, and changed human behavior in the blink of an eye.
People who lost everything were trying to move forward, but at the same time were suffering unimaginably from an extreme sense of loss in the ravaged landscape. They were afraid that they might be forgotten as time passed.
A month after the disaster, people still have not found the bodies of their missing family members. Villages are still buried in the debris.
The nuclear power plant, promoted as an environmentally friendly way of generating power, has exploded several times.
It is time to fundamentally re-think the way Japanese society functions.”