NOTHING SPECIAL-Curator Bree Lamb > EXHIBITION #1
EXHIBITION #1
SOLVITUR AMBULANDO NO. 39 by Nadezda Nikolava- Kratzer
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'Solvitur Ambulando Series'
Nikolova-Kratze says of this work, "'Solvitur Ambulando' consists of wet plate collodion photograms of flora I collected during walks and meanderings. The series considers two perspectives.
One explores ecological themes by drawing on the herbarium tradition and connecting to the dawn of photography. I am thinking of Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes of algae and Cecilia Gleisher’s photogenic drawings of ferns.
Like Atkins and Glaisher, I am fascinated by the richness of the natural world. I am also deeply concerned about its survival in light of anthropogenic impacts. These rudimentary photograms, created by directly placing ordinary plant objects on light sensitive emulsion, ask the viewer to pause and to notice; to connect and to care; to consider the colossal significance and unspeakable beauty of a humble weed.
This series also explores a deeply personal inward journey, which speaks to the second perspective. I collected the flora during a period of upheaval, anticipation and loss.
Each piece is a self-contained visual poem within the larger whole, where the medium itself plays a part in the storytelling. By manipulating chemistry, timing and light I create artifacts that suggest mystery and drama, evoking a spectrum of psychological interiors.
Forms combine with textures to create moods and associations. Plant materials and arrangements hint at symbols. The herbarium becomes a catalog of “psychological specimens,” tethered to a time and place yet also existing outside of time and place; the biological specimens returning to the viewer as personal memories. In this manner, the natural form becomes inseparable from the artifact; the image inseparable from the hand; the objective inseparable from the subjective."
Born in Former Yugoslavia, Nadezda Nikolova-Kratzer is a self-taught photographic artist based in Oakland, CA.
She creates image-objects using lens-less techniques as well as cameras. She is interested in photography’s relationship to time and the application of historical processes to contemporary subject matter.
She is drawn to imagery where the physicality of the handmade object impacts the viewer’s experience and the medium itself shapes the storytelling. She often looks to natural forms for inspiration, which reflects her connection to nature and concern for its survival in light of anthropogenic impacts on species and ecosystems.
She is particularly drawn to illuminating forms that are seemingly mundane and easily overlooked, seeking to highlight their intrinsic significance as well to impart new meanings.
Over the years, Nikolova-Kratzer has focused on developing a distinct visual language using wet plate collodion, painting inner landscapes and conjuring up moods and metaphors.
The fluidity of her chosen medium allows her to experiment, push boundaries and make the process her own. She welcomes the challenge of confronting the technical aspects and seeks the suspense inherent in working with chemistry that is in a constant state of flux.
Her work has been exhibited internationally and nationally at Art Intersection (Gilbert, AZ), LightBox Photographic Fine Art & Printing (Astoria, OR), The Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, CO), Anne Wright Wilson Gallery, Georgetown College (Georgetown, KY), “ACTINIC” Festival of Alternative Photography (Edinburgh, Scotland), Gallery 136 1/2 at PhotoSynthesis (Manchester, CT), A Smith Gallery (Johnston City, TX), and “Revela-T” Photo Festival of Analog Photography (Vilassar de Dalt, Spain).
In 2015, Juror Elizabeth Avedon awarded her Honorable Mention and Director Hamidah Glasgow awarded her Directior’s Selection in The Center For Fine Art Photography’s juried show “Illuminate 2015.”
She was awarded second place in the internationally juried “ACTINIC” Festival dedicated to alternative, historic and new analogue photo related arts by Jurors John McNaught, Karen Harvey and Alex Boyd.
She was among “2016 Critical Mass Finalists” (Photolucida). LensCulture featured her series “Solvitur Ambulando” as Editors’ Pics in 2016.
Her work was also featured in online juried competitions by Don’t Take Pictures and Plates-To-Pixels, as well as publications, including MonoVisions Black&White Magazine, Oxford American, SEITIES, The Hand Magazine, Muybridge’s Horse, and Your Daily Photograph.
In 2016, Nikolova-Kratzer and her husband, Kaden Kratzer, co-juried an international exhibition in alternative and historic processes, entitled “Remnants: On the Edge of Avant-Garde and Antiquarian Photography” held at LightBox Photographic Gallery & Fine Printing (Astoria, OR). In 2017 she was a guest speaker at Laney College (Oakland, CA).
You can find more about her work at
www.nadezdanikolova.com
Nikolova-Kratze says of this work, "'Solvitur Ambulando' consists of wet plate collodion photograms of flora I collected during walks and meanderings. The series considers two perspectives.
One explores ecological themes by drawing on the herbarium tradition and connecting to the dawn of photography. I am thinking of Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes of algae and Cecilia Gleisher’s photogenic drawings of ferns.
Like Atkins and Glaisher, I am fascinated by the richness of the natural world. I am also deeply concerned about its survival in light of anthropogenic impacts. These rudimentary photograms, created by directly placing ordinary plant objects on light sensitive emulsion, ask the viewer to pause and to notice; to connect and to care; to consider the colossal significance and unspeakable beauty of a humble weed.
This series also explores a deeply personal inward journey, which speaks to the second perspective. I collected the flora during a period of upheaval, anticipation and loss.
Each piece is a self-contained visual poem within the larger whole, where the medium itself plays a part in the storytelling. By manipulating chemistry, timing and light I create artifacts that suggest mystery and drama, evoking a spectrum of psychological interiors.
Forms combine with textures to create moods and associations. Plant materials and arrangements hint at symbols. The herbarium becomes a catalog of “psychological specimens,” tethered to a time and place yet also existing outside of time and place; the biological specimens returning to the viewer as personal memories. In this manner, the natural form becomes inseparable from the artifact; the image inseparable from the hand; the objective inseparable from the subjective."
Born in Former Yugoslavia, Nadezda Nikolova-Kratzer is a self-taught photographic artist based in Oakland, CA.
She creates image-objects using lens-less techniques as well as cameras. She is interested in photography’s relationship to time and the application of historical processes to contemporary subject matter.
She is drawn to imagery where the physicality of the handmade object impacts the viewer’s experience and the medium itself shapes the storytelling. She often looks to natural forms for inspiration, which reflects her connection to nature and concern for its survival in light of anthropogenic impacts on species and ecosystems.
She is particularly drawn to illuminating forms that are seemingly mundane and easily overlooked, seeking to highlight their intrinsic significance as well to impart new meanings.
Over the years, Nikolova-Kratzer has focused on developing a distinct visual language using wet plate collodion, painting inner landscapes and conjuring up moods and metaphors.
The fluidity of her chosen medium allows her to experiment, push boundaries and make the process her own. She welcomes the challenge of confronting the technical aspects and seeks the suspense inherent in working with chemistry that is in a constant state of flux.
Her work has been exhibited internationally and nationally at Art Intersection (Gilbert, AZ), LightBox Photographic Fine Art & Printing (Astoria, OR), The Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, CO), Anne Wright Wilson Gallery, Georgetown College (Georgetown, KY), “ACTINIC” Festival of Alternative Photography (Edinburgh, Scotland), Gallery 136 1/2 at PhotoSynthesis (Manchester, CT), A Smith Gallery (Johnston City, TX), and “Revela-T” Photo Festival of Analog Photography (Vilassar de Dalt, Spain).
In 2015, Juror Elizabeth Avedon awarded her Honorable Mention and Director Hamidah Glasgow awarded her Directior’s Selection in The Center For Fine Art Photography’s juried show “Illuminate 2015.”
She was awarded second place in the internationally juried “ACTINIC” Festival dedicated to alternative, historic and new analogue photo related arts by Jurors John McNaught, Karen Harvey and Alex Boyd.
She was among “2016 Critical Mass Finalists” (Photolucida). LensCulture featured her series “Solvitur Ambulando” as Editors’ Pics in 2016.
Her work was also featured in online juried competitions by Don’t Take Pictures and Plates-To-Pixels, as well as publications, including MonoVisions Black&White Magazine, Oxford American, SEITIES, The Hand Magazine, Muybridge’s Horse, and Your Daily Photograph.
In 2016, Nikolova-Kratzer and her husband, Kaden Kratzer, co-juried an international exhibition in alternative and historic processes, entitled “Remnants: On the Edge of Avant-Garde and Antiquarian Photography” held at LightBox Photographic Gallery & Fine Printing (Astoria, OR). In 2017 she was a guest speaker at Laney College (Oakland, CA).
You can find more about her work at
www.nadezdanikolova.com
SOLVITUR AMUBLANDO N0 50 by Nadezda Nikolava- Kratzer
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SOLVITUR AMBULANDO NO 32 by Nadezda Nikolava- Kratzer
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SOCIAL BOUNDARIES by Aaron Wilder
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Aaron Wilder blurs boundaries between the analog and the digital, the public and the private, and the unassuming and the instigative.
His work explores the introspective and social processes of contemporary culture in the way an anthropologist would analyze fragments of an ancient civilization. Wilder’s concept-driven projects all incorporate his core belief that art can and should be used as a tool for generating critical thinking, dialogue, knowledge sharing, and understanding between individuals with divergent world perspectives.
Originally from Arizona, Aaron Wilder has also lived in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and France and currently resides in San Francisco. Wilder has been creating art since 2002 and has shown at exhibitions in Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, DC.
Wilder received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2017 and has been featured in 23 solo exhibitions and 52 group exhibitions. Venues that have displayed his work include Gallery Celtica in Phoenix, Off-Rhode Gallery in Washington, DC, SPACEWOMb Gallery in Manhattan, ARC Gallery in Chicago, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Root Division in San Francisco, and Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art in Moraga, California.
aaronwilder.com
His work explores the introspective and social processes of contemporary culture in the way an anthropologist would analyze fragments of an ancient civilization. Wilder’s concept-driven projects all incorporate his core belief that art can and should be used as a tool for generating critical thinking, dialogue, knowledge sharing, and understanding between individuals with divergent world perspectives.
Originally from Arizona, Aaron Wilder has also lived in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and France and currently resides in San Francisco. Wilder has been creating art since 2002 and has shown at exhibitions in Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, DC.
Wilder received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2017 and has been featured in 23 solo exhibitions and 52 group exhibitions. Venues that have displayed his work include Gallery Celtica in Phoenix, Off-Rhode Gallery in Washington, DC, SPACEWOMb Gallery in Manhattan, ARC Gallery in Chicago, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Root Division in San Francisco, and Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art in Moraga, California.
aaronwilder.com
THROUGH THE CONCRETE by Aaron Wilder
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WALK GENTLY AND WATCH CLOSELY by Aaron Wilder
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HOPE by Amir Lavon
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Amir Lavon says of his work, "Most of my work is done in the streets, telling the story of the simple man, the story of life and place.
Lately I've started to learn photo therapy as a tool for life and education.
More than anything Street Photography is an attitude, it is an openness to being amazed by what comes your way. It is unlearning the habit of categorizing and dismissing the everyday as being ‘just the everyday’ and beginning to recognize that extraordinary, beautiful and subtle stories are occurring everyday of your life if you can see them.
actually think you can be a Street Photographer without a camera and without making photographs; it is really just the more insecure Street Photographers like me that actually have to record and show off their ability to 'see’.
As a street photographer you must to be a "street animal", to wander the streets watching, observing, hoping that something will occur before you.
I don’t have preference of whom to photograph and since Street Photography is reactive and spontaneous, there is little to no time afforded to think or intellectualize, but I also look for those who seem like nobody will ever tell their story.
There is only one subject in Street Photography: people, Street Photography concerns itself with Life, Humanity, everyday random moments, human interaction and because of that you are using small cameras, it's less about photography and more about people and the life in the streets.
Street Photography helps me understand the nature of my society and my place in it. It's a lot about the place you live and the community around you, many people will say that more than Street Photography is a kind of art it's an attitude."
A 36 years old street and documentary photographer, based in Afula, Israel, Amir Lavon is also an English and photography teacher for special aids students and student at high risk community in the education system.
He earned his P.E Degree in photography and new media in PCK Photo center College, studied B/w photography and printing from the creative photography school, TLV and culture photography in National geographic Israel.
lavont1.wixsite.com/streettime
Lately I've started to learn photo therapy as a tool for life and education.
More than anything Street Photography is an attitude, it is an openness to being amazed by what comes your way. It is unlearning the habit of categorizing and dismissing the everyday as being ‘just the everyday’ and beginning to recognize that extraordinary, beautiful and subtle stories are occurring everyday of your life if you can see them.
actually think you can be a Street Photographer without a camera and without making photographs; it is really just the more insecure Street Photographers like me that actually have to record and show off their ability to 'see’.
As a street photographer you must to be a "street animal", to wander the streets watching, observing, hoping that something will occur before you.
I don’t have preference of whom to photograph and since Street Photography is reactive and spontaneous, there is little to no time afforded to think or intellectualize, but I also look for those who seem like nobody will ever tell their story.
There is only one subject in Street Photography: people, Street Photography concerns itself with Life, Humanity, everyday random moments, human interaction and because of that you are using small cameras, it's less about photography and more about people and the life in the streets.
Street Photography helps me understand the nature of my society and my place in it. It's a lot about the place you live and the community around you, many people will say that more than Street Photography is a kind of art it's an attitude."
A 36 years old street and documentary photographer, based in Afula, Israel, Amir Lavon is also an English and photography teacher for special aids students and student at high risk community in the education system.
He earned his P.E Degree in photography and new media in PCK Photo center College, studied B/w photography and printing from the creative photography school, TLV and culture photography in National geographic Israel.
lavont1.wixsite.com/streettime
JEFF by Amir Lavon
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WE ARE THE PEOPLE by Amir Lavon
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GREEN EYES by Andrea Waxler
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Andrea Waxler says of this work, “Not Mundane”, "I have hiked around the pond many times and experienced little urge to pick up my camera and press the shutter. The water, the sky, the clouds, the trees……seen that before. Ho-hum.
BUT. Add a little breeze, a little cross-current, some bright white clouds and it’s a whole new world. Tree trunks morph into dark, twisting squiggles. The clashing currents create orgasmic shapes and colors. Within my frame I see dancing and light, movement and rhythm. It takes patience, as the clouds move by. Patience for just the right amount of wind and sun and as you are composing your image, watch that you are not getting your feet wet.
And once you wait and watch while nature cooks up the exact “recipe”, the ho-hum of your surroundings becomes a swirl of vibrant, visual excitement."
Ms. Waxler started her career in the areas of painting, sculpting and pottery. She was the founder and Director of the Art Studio at New Hampshire College in Manchester, New Hampshire. Graduating from University of Pittsburgh with a BA in Fine Art, interest in photography led to coursework at New Hampshire Institute of Art and New England School of Photography.
Additional coursework has been completed at the Griffin Museum of Photography and the School for The Digital Arts.
Waxler's works have been shown, awarded and sold at multiple juried gallery exhibits including the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, The Griffin Museum of Photography, PhotoPlace Gallery, LA Photo Curator Gallery, The Cape Cod Art Association, The Darkroom Gallery, The Moose Hill Gallery, Gallery25N and the Plymouth Center for the Arts. She is a Russell Gallery Juried Artist (the gallery is located in Plymouth, MA) an Exhibiting Member of the Vermont Center for Photography in Brattleboro, VT and a Juried Member of the New Hampshire Art Association.
She was presented with the prestigious, International 10th Annual and 11th Annual Black and White Spider Awards Nominee for three of her images.
Additionally, her photos have been published in both print and online media in magazines such as "Chronicle of the Horse" and “Smokey Blue Mountain Literary and Arts Magazine”.
Her work embraces a visual esthetic that demonstrates energy and intensity, organic, abstract shapes and vibrant colors with a twist of humor and mystery.
www.andreawaxler.com
BUT. Add a little breeze, a little cross-current, some bright white clouds and it’s a whole new world. Tree trunks morph into dark, twisting squiggles. The clashing currents create orgasmic shapes and colors. Within my frame I see dancing and light, movement and rhythm. It takes patience, as the clouds move by. Patience for just the right amount of wind and sun and as you are composing your image, watch that you are not getting your feet wet.
And once you wait and watch while nature cooks up the exact “recipe”, the ho-hum of your surroundings becomes a swirl of vibrant, visual excitement."
Ms. Waxler started her career in the areas of painting, sculpting and pottery. She was the founder and Director of the Art Studio at New Hampshire College in Manchester, New Hampshire. Graduating from University of Pittsburgh with a BA in Fine Art, interest in photography led to coursework at New Hampshire Institute of Art and New England School of Photography.
Additional coursework has been completed at the Griffin Museum of Photography and the School for The Digital Arts.
Waxler's works have been shown, awarded and sold at multiple juried gallery exhibits including the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, The Griffin Museum of Photography, PhotoPlace Gallery, LA Photo Curator Gallery, The Cape Cod Art Association, The Darkroom Gallery, The Moose Hill Gallery, Gallery25N and the Plymouth Center for the Arts. She is a Russell Gallery Juried Artist (the gallery is located in Plymouth, MA) an Exhibiting Member of the Vermont Center for Photography in Brattleboro, VT and a Juried Member of the New Hampshire Art Association.
She was presented with the prestigious, International 10th Annual and 11th Annual Black and White Spider Awards Nominee for three of her images.
Additionally, her photos have been published in both print and online media in magazines such as "Chronicle of the Horse" and “Smokey Blue Mountain Literary and Arts Magazine”.
Her work embraces a visual esthetic that demonstrates energy and intensity, organic, abstract shapes and vibrant colors with a twist of humor and mystery.
www.andreawaxler.com
SQUIGGLES by Andrea Waxler
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TREE AND SKY by Andrea Waxler
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JUST PRIOR TO THE DIVORCE by Anne Eder
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Anne Eder says of her work, "Armed as we are with cell phone cameras, it might be argued that there are currently more photographs made documenting “nothing special” than at any other time in photographic history, including just after the introduction of the first Kodak snapshot cameras.
Yet, it would seem that some aspect of that mendacity is driving the desire to create an image, producing a conundrum in that there must be something special after all, hidden within the ordinary. Over the years I have always been far more drawn to documenting the mundane events than the milestones.
I can’t speak for others, but for me the catalysts to pulling the trigger are diverse, often down to the light or to a pleasing convergence of form and composition, or because of a humorous juxtaposition of elements, though it might also be a hopelessly biased affection for the subject or object.
Occasionally I like to share the routine things in my life that may not be the norm for others. I find myself recording daily exchanges with the animals that share my space. Maybe sometimes it’s foreboding, a sense that despite the appearance of normality, everything is about to change. I have tried to choose three images that line up with these thoughts in some way."
Anne Eder is an artist and photographic educator from Philadelphia. She holds an MFA in Photography and Integrated Media from Lesley University College of Art and Design where she studied under Christopher James.
Her work has been exhibited internationally and was recently presented at the Phoenix Art Museum by curator Susan Bright in her talk on the Top Ten Photographers she encountered in 2016. Anne most often creates interdisciplinary work that draws on folklore, mythology, and the natural world. She currently lives in Boston making monsters, writing fairy tales, and catering to her fabulous chihuahua, The Brain.
www.anneeder.com
Yet, it would seem that some aspect of that mendacity is driving the desire to create an image, producing a conundrum in that there must be something special after all, hidden within the ordinary. Over the years I have always been far more drawn to documenting the mundane events than the milestones.
I can’t speak for others, but for me the catalysts to pulling the trigger are diverse, often down to the light or to a pleasing convergence of form and composition, or because of a humorous juxtaposition of elements, though it might also be a hopelessly biased affection for the subject or object.
Occasionally I like to share the routine things in my life that may not be the norm for others. I find myself recording daily exchanges with the animals that share my space. Maybe sometimes it’s foreboding, a sense that despite the appearance of normality, everything is about to change. I have tried to choose three images that line up with these thoughts in some way."
Anne Eder is an artist and photographic educator from Philadelphia. She holds an MFA in Photography and Integrated Media from Lesley University College of Art and Design where she studied under Christopher James.
Her work has been exhibited internationally and was recently presented at the Phoenix Art Museum by curator Susan Bright in her talk on the Top Ten Photographers she encountered in 2016. Anne most often creates interdisciplinary work that draws on folklore, mythology, and the natural world. She currently lives in Boston making monsters, writing fairy tales, and catering to her fabulous chihuahua, The Brain.
www.anneeder.com
THE CURRENT CONTENTS OF THE SINK OR BIRD BRAIN by Anne Eder
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THE DOG AT THE END OF THE HALL by Anne Eder
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BARTENDER AT THE DL by Ashley Middleton
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Ashley Middleton says of her work, "Our daily lives are saturated with images. They move in, around, and through us, shaping how we understand the world around us. They are a currency that negotiates our social access, generates patterns of thinking, and mirrors lines of social inequity. My work digs inside these invisible structures, asking what it means to see, to see oneself, to be seen, and to posses a product of sight.
'Through Others' is a compilation of strangers I met in Arles and New York that I believed resembled me. I approached each subject in passing, when I felt a visual link between their look, actions, and movements, and mine. I was exploring how we visualize ourselves through external means and how those visualizations might inform individual choices. In focusing on the relationship between sight, self, and other, I contemplated how micro-choices (shaped by culture, experience, and social practices) establish macro-routines that become embodied knowledge carried through our daily lives.
My work is a method for locating a line of thinking in self-identification that alters how we relate to others. It is an attempt to generate ways for communicating and understanding the immaterial connection between self and other.
I’ve confronted the disparity between individual and projected identification using gender in my series Missed Connections. By placing attention on how women are positioned, commodified, and understood in everyday life I’ve illuminated a cultural struggle of human representation."
Ashley Middleton (b. 1985) is a visual artist working in a range of media that includes photography, installation, and video. With an interest in visualizing the micro relations between the ego, the individual, and the collective, Middleton explores the evolution of social connectivity in the age of rapid technological advancement. Her work engages in the territory between virtual and physical space - as well as the embodiment of those territories - paying particular attention to how identities are formed in and through the language of new and old media. Founded in sociological research, Middleton’s projects are the visual aftermath of personal curiosities and experimentations.
She has an MFA from Parsons School of Design and an MA from Goldsmiths, University of London. Middleton has showcased her work at Photoville in New York, Pingyao International Photography Festival in China, and Auckland Festival of Photography in New Zealand. Middleton lives and works in New York City.
amiddletonprojects.com
'Through Others' is a compilation of strangers I met in Arles and New York that I believed resembled me. I approached each subject in passing, when I felt a visual link between their look, actions, and movements, and mine. I was exploring how we visualize ourselves through external means and how those visualizations might inform individual choices. In focusing on the relationship between sight, self, and other, I contemplated how micro-choices (shaped by culture, experience, and social practices) establish macro-routines that become embodied knowledge carried through our daily lives.
My work is a method for locating a line of thinking in self-identification that alters how we relate to others. It is an attempt to generate ways for communicating and understanding the immaterial connection between self and other.
I’ve confronted the disparity between individual and projected identification using gender in my series Missed Connections. By placing attention on how women are positioned, commodified, and understood in everyday life I’ve illuminated a cultural struggle of human representation."
Ashley Middleton (b. 1985) is a visual artist working in a range of media that includes photography, installation, and video. With an interest in visualizing the micro relations between the ego, the individual, and the collective, Middleton explores the evolution of social connectivity in the age of rapid technological advancement. Her work engages in the territory between virtual and physical space - as well as the embodiment of those territories - paying particular attention to how identities are formed in and through the language of new and old media. Founded in sociological research, Middleton’s projects are the visual aftermath of personal curiosities and experimentations.
She has an MFA from Parsons School of Design and an MA from Goldsmiths, University of London. Middleton has showcased her work at Photoville in New York, Pingyao International Photography Festival in China, and Auckland Festival of Photography in New Zealand. Middleton lives and works in New York City.
amiddletonprojects.com
BLONDE WHITE TOP SHORTS PONY TAIL STRETCHING AT LOCUST ST. ENTRANCE by Ashley Middleton
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COLESLAW KITTEN EAR HOODIE CHESS by Ashley Middleton
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INDECISIVE 03 by Beth Herzhaft
HONORABLE MENTION
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HONORABLE MENTION
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Beth Herzhaft says of her work, "'The Indecisive Moment' is a series of contemporary photographic landscapes.
The subject matter I gravitate toward is unspectacular, and the images are a mischievous reaction to “epic” photography. In these images there is no “decisive moment”: what is captured is a comma rather than an exclamation point.
Through the juxtaposition of spatial elements, use of color and light and choice of subject, a "discovered" narrative emerges, highlighting incompleteness as a condition of everyday life. This series is an exploration of the ephemeral, the images framed to appear incidental.
There is a tension between meaning and meaninglessness that is expressed in the work.
In these images there is a sense of idealism and anxiety (albeit a humorous one), with both the beautiful and the absurd coexisting in an uneasy truce."
Beth Herzhaft graduated cum laude from The University of Hard Knocks and received her MFA in Photography from Nowhere In Particular. Her first commercial job (photographing gangster rapper Schooly-D) resulted from her finding her way into the art department at Capitol Records, back when you could get away with that sort of thing.
She has been a freelance photographer since the mid-1990's, working with numerous publications, advertising agencies and
record companies. The rest of the time she is shooting fine art. She maintains a studio in Los Angeles, CA.
She has had the good fortune to work with many amazing people over the years: Solomon Burke, Herbie Hancock, Nels Cline, St. Vincent, Colin Hay, Mazzy Star, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Pharoah Sanders etc)
Beth is influenced by everything from Richard Feynman to Mavis Staples. She deeply loves what she does, both in fine art and commercially.
www.herzco.com
www.herzco.com/albums/the-indecisive-moment-1/
The subject matter I gravitate toward is unspectacular, and the images are a mischievous reaction to “epic” photography. In these images there is no “decisive moment”: what is captured is a comma rather than an exclamation point.
Through the juxtaposition of spatial elements, use of color and light and choice of subject, a "discovered" narrative emerges, highlighting incompleteness as a condition of everyday life. This series is an exploration of the ephemeral, the images framed to appear incidental.
There is a tension between meaning and meaninglessness that is expressed in the work.
In these images there is a sense of idealism and anxiety (albeit a humorous one), with both the beautiful and the absurd coexisting in an uneasy truce."
Beth Herzhaft graduated cum laude from The University of Hard Knocks and received her MFA in Photography from Nowhere In Particular. Her first commercial job (photographing gangster rapper Schooly-D) resulted from her finding her way into the art department at Capitol Records, back when you could get away with that sort of thing.
She has been a freelance photographer since the mid-1990's, working with numerous publications, advertising agencies and
record companies. The rest of the time she is shooting fine art. She maintains a studio in Los Angeles, CA.
She has had the good fortune to work with many amazing people over the years: Solomon Burke, Herbie Hancock, Nels Cline, St. Vincent, Colin Hay, Mazzy Star, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Pharoah Sanders etc)
Beth is influenced by everything from Richard Feynman to Mavis Staples. She deeply loves what she does, both in fine art and commercially.
www.herzco.com
www.herzco.com/albums/the-indecisive-moment-1/
INDECISIVE 01 by Beth Herzhaft
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INDECISIVE 02 by Beth Herzhaft
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MIDWAY SAINT PAUL MINNESOTA NUMBER 1-1 by Brandon Sweet
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Mathias Sweet says of his work, "My interest in Art began at an early age, dreaming of working for National Geographic and publishing books of the beautiful, untamed wilderness. However, as I proceeded upon my photographic journey my interests evolved.
Having found an uncomfortable niche in event and portrait photography, I began to move into the realm of the often over-used term of "Fine Art Photography", finding more often than not working for others was not my cup of tea.
These days I photograph what's immediate and deserving in my eye. What I find beautiful or contented. The moments that provide me with placidity in the quotidian. My work is not about the place, but rather the feeling felt, at a specific instant in time within a place."
Selected Awards & Publications:
1st Place in the “Textures” call for entry. LA Photo Curator (www.laphotocurator.com/texture-curator-sandrine-hermand-grisel/first-place-mathias-sweet/1), March 2017. Online Publication.
“Mathias Sweet and the Sweet xPan”, Anatomy Films (www.anatomyfilms.com/mathias-sweet-sweet-xpan/), April 2017, Online Publication.
“Utilitarian Ten”, Lens Magazine, Jan 2017, 110-123. Print.
“Signs of Life Exhibition”, Lenscratch (lenscratch.com/2016/10/signs-of-life-exhibition-part-3/), Oct 2016. Online Publication.
“Patterns”, ArtAscent, Aug 2016. 64-66. Print.
“Just Us,” Mpls St.Paul Weddings, Summer 2010. 96. Print.
Inside Analog Radio, Aug 2010. Interview.
www.mathiassweet.com
Having found an uncomfortable niche in event and portrait photography, I began to move into the realm of the often over-used term of "Fine Art Photography", finding more often than not working for others was not my cup of tea.
These days I photograph what's immediate and deserving in my eye. What I find beautiful or contented. The moments that provide me with placidity in the quotidian. My work is not about the place, but rather the feeling felt, at a specific instant in time within a place."
Selected Awards & Publications:
1st Place in the “Textures” call for entry. LA Photo Curator (www.laphotocurator.com/texture-curator-sandrine-hermand-grisel/first-place-mathias-sweet/1), March 2017. Online Publication.
“Mathias Sweet and the Sweet xPan”, Anatomy Films (www.anatomyfilms.com/mathias-sweet-sweet-xpan/), April 2017, Online Publication.
“Utilitarian Ten”, Lens Magazine, Jan 2017, 110-123. Print.
“Signs of Life Exhibition”, Lenscratch (lenscratch.com/2016/10/signs-of-life-exhibition-part-3/), Oct 2016. Online Publication.
“Patterns”, ArtAscent, Aug 2016. 64-66. Print.
“Just Us,” Mpls St.Paul Weddings, Summer 2010. 96. Print.
Inside Analog Radio, Aug 2010. Interview.
www.mathiassweet.com
MURDO SOUTH DAKOTA NUMBER 1 by Brandon Sweet
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SAINT PAUL MINNESOTA NUMBER 3 by Brandon Sweet
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PRESERVED by Brett Davies
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Brett Davies says of his work, "I am an Australian having spent the last ten years living, surfing and photographing in southern Sri Lanka.
As a passionate photographer, I have been taking street scenes and street portraits in Sri Lanka since I arrived. For me, photography is not a commercial pursuit but, a personal one.
I seek images that capture real feeling and honest simplicity. Mostly I photograph people and things in the street, everyday life and work, and it tends to be the people that have less rather than more. They seem to be the ones that have the vibrancy, character and life story.
Sometimes I see something and it has instant appeal so I photograph it. Regularly I don't even really know what it is about the scene that appeals so much It may be quite normal, simple or mundane yet to me it is definitely something.
Most of all, through my photography I wish to reveal the true existences of people to the rest of the world. I believe that awareness is a small step towards justice and equality."
www.flickr.com/photos/photosightfaces/
As a passionate photographer, I have been taking street scenes and street portraits in Sri Lanka since I arrived. For me, photography is not a commercial pursuit but, a personal one.
I seek images that capture real feeling and honest simplicity. Mostly I photograph people and things in the street, everyday life and work, and it tends to be the people that have less rather than more. They seem to be the ones that have the vibrancy, character and life story.
Sometimes I see something and it has instant appeal so I photograph it. Regularly I don't even really know what it is about the scene that appeals so much It may be quite normal, simple or mundane yet to me it is definitely something.
Most of all, through my photography I wish to reveal the true existences of people to the rest of the world. I believe that awareness is a small step towards justice and equality."
www.flickr.com/photos/photosightfaces/
THE LADDER by Brett Davies
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THE LEAF by Brett Davies
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Click on link below to view Exhbition #2
www.laphotocurator.com/nothing-special-curator-bree-lamb/exhibition-2/1
(Click on image for larger view)
Click on link below to view Exhbition #2
www.laphotocurator.com/nothing-special-curator-bree-lamb/exhibition-2/1
