New Directions 2010, Down + Out

What a show! Ms. Carol McCusker of MOPA has curated an international exhibition to showcase here at the gallery as well as a second viewing in Portland at 23 Sandy coming up in February.

The competition was tough. over 220 submissions, 1000 images, and Carol was able to cull it to 42 artists with 45 images. Really tough. I loved a lot of the work submitted, so I didn't envy her her job of clarifying dizzying visual perspectives.

Here is a list of the participating artists (in alphabetical order)

Robbie Acklen (Claremont, CA)

John Aldredge (Seattle, WA)

Jeff Antebi (Los Angeles, CA)

Cordelia Bailey (Anahola, HI)

Chris Bennett (Portland, OR)

Heidi Bertman (Beaverton, OR)

Andrew Binkley (Haiku, HI)

Charles Blackburn (Seattle, WA)

J. Wesley Brown (Los Angeles, CA)

Alejandro Cartagena (Monterrey, Mexico)

Pete Cosenza (Ventura, CA)

Matthew Derezinski (Kirksville, MO)

Kristen Fecker Peroni (Dexter, MI)

David George (Hackney, London, England)

Colin Graham (Port Angeles, WA)

Steve Guttenberg (Brooklyn, NY)

Ray Hau (Hong Kong)

Nicole Jean Hill (Eureka, CA)

Joshua Hobson (Tallahassee, FL)

Adam Jaocno (Greenville, NC)

Kirby Johnson (St. Paul, MN)

Jeffrey Krolick (Portland, OR)

Sarah Marie Land (St. Louis, MO)

Larry Larsen (Seattle, WA)
Nathan Lunstrum (Tarrytown, NY)
Duc Ly (Portland, OR)
Kora Manheimer (Brooklyn, NY)
Patricia McInroy (Albuquerque, NM)
Daniel Melo (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Charles Mintz (Cleveland, OH)
Emily Nathan (Oakland, CA)
David Jaewon Oh (Mill Creek, WA)
Wayne Palmer (New York, NY)
Ric Peterson (Vashon Island, WA)
Dawn Roe (Winter Park, FL)
Wendy Ross (Nyack, NY)
Michael Seif (Watertown, MA)
Sarah Sharp (Detroit, MI)
Peter Tilgner (Tenafly, NJ)
Ronit Toledano (Tel-Aviv, Israel)
Anna Maria Vag (Seattle, WA)
Jacqueline Walters (San Francisco, CA)

China Travels

So, I am back from China, and have many thoughts on what a great trip it was, what an interesting country, politically, personally and visually and am still trying to wrap my head around the experience. In the meantime, Buzz always hits the road with me, so I thought I would start with his highlights of the trip. There will be more posts on Chinese photography to follow. Stay tuned.
and thank you to Karen Davis for the shot of me and buzz.

Lishui Photo - Karen Davis

Karen Davis is headed to China this week with her body of work, Close to Home.
Here is more on her series.

Project: Close to Home
“Close to Home,” is a series of portraits of children and family at moments of deep engagement. I began at home, with photographs of girls at play; I continued with subjects in my family and immediate neighborhood. As my own children married and had children, I incorporated the diversity of their lives. Now, “Close to Home” extends far beyond my neighborhood to the world.

Lishui Photo - Mary Parisi

Mary Parisi left for China today.

Her work, looking at food is based on the artistic, rather than culinary, allowing us to create an emotional connection of our own to foods so personal to her.

more about Food Pictures -
This body of work is about food. All the pictures resulted from foods, which I cooked and ate. Some of the food, like the chicken soup pictures are reminders of my childhood and my father who made chicken soup every other Monday for many years.
To some extent the pictures are related to my history as a sculptor because I think of food as material for art. I am indebted to the artist Joseph Bueys and his use of fat for its physical properties and metaphorical value.
I have to admit that while I am not a vegetarian, I live with a reluctance to take as food other animals, who like us have blood in their veins. I have no answer for this dilemma. I can only acknowledge the conflict and try to say, it is a chicken or a pig or the fat rendered from the pig’s body and it is delicious and beautiful and horrible.

Lishui Photo - Karen Strom

Karen Strom is one of a pair of Stroms. Her husband, Stephen is a photographer as well. Both Stroms are accomplished scientists, who have now focused on creative endeavors. Stephen's work, abstract large scale landscapes, was profiled earlier this month as part of the Lishui Festival. Karen's work is significantly different than Stephen's in her process, eye and creative focus. Her composited works create environments, visions and scenes that are often miles apart. Her blending of textures creates what she calls Architectonics.

Here is more about her process -

"The world I see is composed of many different layers, scales and moments. When making an image, I explore the relationships between multiple facets of the world, integrating them into a single vision in an attempt to mimic the manner in which the mind forms composite impressions from the array of images that are constantly impinging upon you. While the resulting images often evoke disparate, even conflicting, responses, they ultimately capture a more complete impression of a landscape or object: details are synthesized into broader views; interiors integrated into exterior views. It is the ambiguity of my images, the feelings evoked by differing scales, perspectives and viewpoints, that together work to yield an integrated image of a landscape. It is these visions that I then attempt to translate into a single image, hoping to evoke similar emotional and intellectual responses in the viewer. "

Lishui Photo - Sarah Hadley

I met Sarah in Portland at PhotoLucida this April. She had a beautiful, romantic and really gorgeous portfolio on Venice. Sarah is also one of the participants of the Lishui Festival. The organizing committee chose a different body of work, Water's Edge. Having spent my youth on a beach, and getting back to it as often as I can, I understand the power the ocean holds over us, the metaphors it can conjure and most often I have the overwhelming urge to plunge in and be surrounded in the silence. Sarah's images lead me to that moment. Her Black and white images showcase that fluid ever changing boundary beautifully.

about "The Water's Edge":

I grew up spending entire summer days by the ocean. These outings were always a special event and the beach was a place of wonderment, fascination and exploration for me. I loved the enormity and freedom the beach provided and the sense that we had entered a space where time was lost and the only rhythm was governed by the tides. As an adult, I have lived close to two great bodies of water--Lake Michigan and now the Pacific Ocean, and I've found myself drawn to beaches wherever I travel, especially when I can be alone in these vast panoramas. The complex and ever-changing landscape feels like stepping into an altered reality and I am interested in how the patterns in sand, sea and sky echo one another, as well as showing the transformative power of the elements. Capturing that point where water meets land feels like entering an infinity at the edge of the world.

Tom Chambers - World Photography Gala Award

It is an honor and a privilege to represent someone as talented as Tom Chambers.

I have had the pleasure of seeing his work grow, mature and emerge as one of the most talented artists in the world. His recent showcase in Fotográfica 2009 Bogotá, his smashing show in Madrid, his first place award from DC FotoWeek for his image "Saccharin Perch", and now his most recent success, the World Photography Gala.

Tom was awarded First Place in the Digital Enhanced category of the 2009 Worldwide Photography Gala Awards. "The Goatherd" will be exhibited in the WPGA inaugural exhibition in Madrid.

The WPGA received 3,180 images from 47 countries. The jurors' team included Susan Zadeh, publisher of Eyemazing Magazine; Chris Steele-Perkins, Magnum; Tim Anderson, editor of the Red Dog Journal; and Brooks Jensen, publisher of Lenswork.

Congratulations Tom!