Jesse Burke, recently featured in a series of Flak Photo installments, takes a look at our vision of masculinity.
"In his photographs in Intertidal, Burke explores the complexity of masculine identity, which is in many ways analogous to the intertidal zone. His images capture those moments "in between," with the idealized notion of manhood on the one side and actually being male on the other. His photographs of men and their landscapes hint at sweetness, but they also embrace the heroic idea of masculinity. Burke is drawn to the tension of vulnerability (be it a rupture or physical / emotional / metaphorical wound) and grit ("no pain / no gain"); to the space between strength and tenderness. Sometimes these images capture the fleeting moment between events. Sometimes they capture the concrete event itself. Always, the photographs are working in the ambiguous space of the intertidal zone."
Doug Keyes, locally represented by G. Gibson Gallery, has created Collective Memory.
"Keyes's photographs investigate the ways that knowledge stacks upon itself over time, leaving an impression or "collective memory." In his first monograph, Collective Memory, Keyes’s luminous color images of books literally reveal—and sometimes conceal—this stacking by capturing through multiple exposure the experience of reading the book. The resulting single image is a condensed document of the experience, the ideas contained within, and the physical identity of the book itself. The books Keyes chooses to photograph—from art books and works of fiction, to poetry books and books on scientific theory—hold personal meaning or remembrance for him and become sites to revisit. Keyes's photographs in fact make visible the pleasure of leafing through a text and the memory of that experience."
and John Jenkins III has published his work, Peripheral Vision.
"The lush color photographs of John Jenkins III freeze the moments that often happen in the corner of one's eye in peripheral vision. By using selective focus, Jenkins captures the color and light of a fleeting moment, the fuzzy areas of shadow and light that move just outside our direct vision. While the collection of photographs in Peripheral Visions are of the familiar and the everyday, these images show what is happening on the edges of the known and become impressions, moments of time and place, meditations of dreams and memories"
for more information about how to purchase these great books,or to request more information about their design and print services, please contact Decode or the gallery
