TOPOGRAPHIES

Posted on 2017-09-18

Topographies is a group show that explores the notion of place and one’s connection to a particular environment. The photographic works presented in this exhibition range from a detailed exploration of a particular location to a visual documentation of one’s personal interaction with their surroundings. The act of observing exterior or interior space through capturing the visual qualities of a location portrays a sense of visual mapping. As topographies encompass many different ways of describing and documenting location, from the physical landscape of a terrain, to the in depth history related to a geographic region, the works presented in this exhibition will represent what it means to examine topographically with the medium of photography.

Opposite – Greg Blair

Exhibition runs through to October 13th, 2017

Midwest Center for Photography
1215 Franklin
Wichita
67203 KS

www.mwcponline.com

   Tweet

MICRO/MACRO

Posted on 2017-09-18

Marilyn Bridges and Jeannette Klute both chose Earth’s natural and human-touched terrain as their subject matter. Micro/Macro illustrates how photographs of the Earth on both an intimate and aerial scale can be disorienting as well as familiar, and the inherent compositional parallels between the work of two very different artists.

Bridges photographs sites around the world that show signs of past or present human activities. Looking down from the open door of a small plane flying at an altitude between 300 and 1000 feet, her aerial photographs record a visual experience that is neither like standing on the ground, nor looking out the window of a commercial jet. Her black and white images flatten Earth’s terrain into patterns of light, dark and texture. Exact scale and orientation are not clear except through detailed examination.

Klute is known for her contributions to the technical development and expressive value of color photography in the mid-1900s, when few artistic photographers used color processes. She was hired by Eastman Kodak in 1939, one of few women in the field at the time, and by 1945 was head of the visual research studio in the company’s color technology division. Klute tested a variety of subjects and environments in her research and art, often turning to nature as a source of myriad colors and textures. Her photographs of tide pools emphasize the colors and patterns in these micro environments, with overall compositions that decline to privilege particular objects but rather aim to translate the fascination and wonder she felt towards shore life.

Opposite – Marilyn Bridges, Jagged Waves, Point Reyes, CA, 1981

Exhibition runs through to March 11th, 2018

Akron Art Museum
1 South High
Akron
44308 OH

akronartmuseum.org

   Tweet

CIG HARVEY – HOLDING THE BLUE

Posted on 2017-09-11

‘Holding the Blue’ will showcase 30 photographs from Harvey’s career, taken between 2003 and 2017, as a prelude to the publication of her new book ‘You an Orchestra, You a Bomb’ in November.
Often highly orchestrated, Harvey’s early works created a fantasy version of her own life experiences. Using herself as a model, each image was self-referential and meticulously mapped out to include specific metaphors, symbols and content. As her work progressed, Harvey introduced increasing amounts of spontaneity and branched out to include other models, such as neighbours, her daughter and husband. In Harvey’s most recent work, which focuses on her home town in Maine, mundane locations and events are depicted with strange colour combinations or unexplained light, which lend the images an unsettling air.

Heavy with implied narrative, each photograph is a vignette the visual equivalent of a short story. Seemingly random images of people, places and things, when combined, suggest the passing of time and seasons. The subjects of Harvey’s photographs are usually concealed, whether it be through careful cropping, distance or her use of lighting for example, a child behind a curtain, a woman obscured by the dappled light through a car window or a figure facing away from the camera into the sea. The symbols used throughout Harvey’s work suggest a complex jigsaw to be pieced together by the viewer.

Opposite – Wolfhound, Hope, Maine, 2012

Exhibition runs through to September 16th, 2017

Beetles+Huxley
3-5 Swallow Street
London
W1B 4DE

www.beetlesandhuxley.com

   Tweet