Critical Mass 2008

wow.

over 600 entries, almost 6,000 images...and we had 2 weeks to get through them. As one of the lucky pre-screeners, I was honored to be part of this great opportunity to see what a great community of photographers we have.

I want to thank everyone who submitted images, and put themselves out there. There was alot of really good work. I had a really hard time narrowing down my choices.

I have to say I am really proud of my artists who made the cut -

Susan Burnstine, and her luscious, soft focus, memory images.



Tom Chambers, with his newest work, Improbable Dreams



Mitch Dobrowner, with his incredible landscapes

with her deeply emotional and riveting portraits, Lydia Panas,

and Aline Smithson, who showcased a new series of books that I think it is really creative.



and I will be highlighting artists I thought were really stellar over the next few posts. stay tuned.

Annie Leibovitz is in Seattle - November 19, 2008

Mark your calendars  for 19 November at 7.30pm - 

Annie Leibovitz is coming to town, courtesy Seattle Arts & Lectures. Discussing her new book, Annie Leibovitz at Work, she will open up about her process, covering the technical as well as the creative. 

Give the group a call at 206.621.2230 or log onto the website to purchase your tickets. 

Here is Annie on Annie -

“When I’m asked about my work, I try to explain that there is no mystery involved. It is work. But things happen all the time that are unexpected, uncontrolled, unexplainable, even magical. The work prepares you for that moment. Suddenly the clouds roll in and the soft light you longed for appears.” —Annie Leibovitz

Shameless Self Promotion - November

So many things, so many going on right now either at the gallery, or with my very talented group of artists. I am so excited for them, and feel so proud to represent them and their incredible work.

Take a look -

Susan Burnstine - Within Shadows, a solo show at Gallerie BMG
- Bridge To Nowhere won two 2008 Black & White Spider Awards; third place in the Fine Art Category and second place in the Silhouette category.

Tom Chambers - Tom is going to Bogata, Columbia next May.
FOTOGRÁFICA BOGOTÁ 2009 sponsored by the National Museum of Photography in Bogotá.

Cynthia Greig - Cynthia's showing her Representations series at Ute Noll's UNO Art Space in Stuttgart, Germany. 8 November 2008 - 8 February 2009

Keith Johnson - Panopticon Gallery in Boston and also through 31 October at Valpariso University in Indiana

Lydia Panas - Lydia's work is included in the exhibition "Humanscape"  in Korea in December, and Dean Jensen Gallery in Milwaukee.

Joelle Jensen - is in the newly released Flash Forward 2008

Mitch Dobrowner - is in LensWork coming up in the December issue.

Jeri Eisenberg

I have had the pleasure of working with the talented Jeri Eisenberg for the last two years to showcase her work during our group shows, and am so pleased to see her work, along with Jahnavi Barnes at Benham Gallery in Seattle this month. If you get a chance to go by, please do. It is a beautiful show, a very calming influence in these really difficult times.



About Jeri's work -

By photographing the treed landscape with a purposefully oversized pinhole or a radically defocused lens, however, I capture it as it is not often seen. The images are
firmly grounded in the natural world, a particular place, a particular season, a particular time. But by obscuring detail, only the strongest brush strokes emerge: the images become sketches with light, literally and figuratively.

The work is unabashedly retinal. But it is also as much object as it is image. The pieces are translucent, reflective and tactile - as a result of the infusion of encaustic into and on the surface of the Japanese Kozo paper. The pieces float off the wall, and move with air current in a room. And, if you are close enough, the scent of the bees’ wax in the encaustic is clearly detectable.

The work is intended to speak directly to the senses: to bypass, on some level, the rational brain. I am happiest when it sits on the balance point between the concrete and the abstract, perception and memory, the there and the not there.

Jenny Gummersall now at wall space

I couldn't help myself - Jenny's work brought me back to my days living in the west, in southern Utah and Jackson, Wyoming. Her rich details of the west hooked me. Oh, those clouds and that sky! Then there is a series called Horse Dreams, abstract, thoughtful and humorous all at the same time. I found it clever and unique.

It is with great pleasure we add Jenny to our group of artists and adding her stunning vision of the west to the gallery. For more information about her work, to see a portfolio please contact us.


Horse Abstracts - Annie's Mane & Abstract 0866




From Horse Dreams - Red with Black Stripe, Blue Fence & Peeling Paint



From Clouds - August Fencing & Tunnel Road

Collectible - Bill Finger

We are so excited to promote and showcase Bill Finger's work.
We are also thrilled to have him on the roster for our upcoming Collectible show.

I have been watching Bill's work over the last two years, and was excited to see Clint Willour select him for our New Directions 2008 showcase of emerging photographers. His body of work, Paramnesia, is a visionary treat, a complex web of ins and outs, of place and memory. All of his stories are interesting, creative and often intense.
Take a look and let us know what you think.




about the series -

Using my childhood as a touchstone I set out to recreate
places from my past as well as their photographic referents.
The process involves recalling a place which is then
transcribed into a series of rough sketches. These sketches
then serve as a form of blueprint from which the place is
recreated in miniature. The miniature serves as a stand in for
my memory which can then be photographed. Once
photographed, the miniature is then dismantled leaving only
the photograph and the original memory.

By using the constructed image it is my hope that on closer
inspection that the viewer discovers the fabrication. With such
a discovery the veracity of both photograph and memory can
be called into question.

Decode Books - Jesse Burke, Doug Keyes and John Jenkins III

We are pleased to be support a new fine art publisher here in the Seattle area, Decode Books. They have created 4 volumes so far, and I think the work is beautiful, insightful and creative. We are featuring the 3 Photo based books here.

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