Lydia Panas on Flak Photo

It's a big day here at wall space - an Artist's Reception AND a highlight of Lydia's work on Flak!

In honor of her artist reception this evening at the gallery, It's a Matter of Perspective, Mr. President is flying across the internets. See the show on the gallery's website.

Have you heard of Flak Photo? If you haven't you are missing out on a solid collection of artists and ideas, as well as your daily dose of photography. As Andy has said on his site - "Flak Photo celebrates the art of publishing contemporary photography online." The site is produced by Andy Adams and highlights new series work, book projects and gallery exhibitions from an international community of contributors.
Sign up for a daily email and get a great image in your email box every morning. I get a visual treat each day.

Here's a look at today's front page showcasing Lydia's great work.



Please join us tonight from 6-8pm at the gallery, rain or shine, and chat with Lydia about her work.
If you can't join us tonight, here is a link to an interview Lydia did with Humble Arts by Julie Fishkin about the visual stories she tells, her process and ideas.

For more on Flak - head to their website.

Jim Kazanjian

I really sympathize with everyone who blogs.
I personally can't keep up.
So many artists, so much information, and so little time.

This artist is one of those who stuck in my mind, but my fingertips can't keep up moments. Jim submitted to our New Directions show, and I loved the work. Last night I was down at 23 Sandy in Portland, celebrating our artist Loren Nelson's opening, and realized when I walked in the door, I had seen the other artist's work somewhere before, but couldn't place it.

I'll tell you what, the jpgs don't do the prints justice. The prints are gorgeous and rich.

Not to be missed. So if you are in Portland any time between now and the 30th of May, do not miss this show.

The work is smart, clever and really well meshed. His images are seamless, and you need to really dig deep, spend some time with them and keep coming back to enjoy them.

A new opportunity from Camerawork

This just in from Chuck Mobley at Camerawork. It sounds like a great opportunity.

In lieu of a juried member's exhibition, Camerawork has chosen to craft an exhibition with a more egalitarian outline and it's open to everyone!
Hence the title: Ersatz Group Exhibition—meaning literally a substitute group exhibition—in reference to our shift away from the juried exhibition model. Utilizing the strategies and conceptual links of mail art allows for a more inclusive process with a broad reach. The idea is provide a service to help artists meet one another, help artists promote their work and to get their work in front of a large group of international curators. Artworks mailed in should reflect each artists' practice in some way, think of it as an advertisement for yourself! This Wikipedia link provides useful background on the history of mail art: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_art Several artists and curators were consulted about what would be most beneficial to artists and all of those suggestions have been included within the structure of the exhibition:

YOUR WORK WILL BE FEATURED IN AN EXHIBITION:
Your lens-based work will be included in an exhibition at SF Camerawork from June 4 to August 22, 2009.

YOUR WORK WILL BE FEATURED IN A PUBLICATION:
A reproduction of your contributed artwork, name, and personal website URL will be included in the exhibition catalog, available mid-summer 2009 via blurb.com and as a PDF download via sfcamerawork.org Curators Lawrence Rinder and Evelyne Jouanno will tour the exhibition and respond to the work by contributing a text to this publication.

YOUR WORK WILL BE FEATURED ON CAMRAWORK'S WEBSITE ARTIST LINKS PAGE:
Artists' personal website URLs will be included on the sfcamerawork.org links page as a resource for curators.

YOUR WORK IS INCLUDED IN AN INTERNATIONAL GIFT EXCHANGE:
In the spirit of a creative exchange economy, once the exhibition closes all participants will receive a work from the exhibition to be redistributed randomly with the Fall/Winter issue of Camerawork: A Journal of Photographic Arts in September 2009. Your own work will not be returned to you.

YOUR WORK COULD BE ON THE COVER OF CAMERAWORK'S JOURNAL:
One (or more) work(s) will be chosen for the cover of the fall issue of Camerawork: A Journal of Photographic Arts.


For more information, to sign up for our email list and to view the call for participants, please see:
http://www.sfcamerawork.org/getinvolved/membership/index.php

Melinda Hurst Frye

Melinda, another submission for our New Directions 09 show, is a Seattle photographer with a quirky, creative eye.

Her use of color, pattern, texture, and the intentional placement of insects create a visual structure that I keep going back to and wondering where did that come from?

about Melissa -
Melinda received her Bachelor’s degree from Pacific Northwest College of Art, and earned her Master’s degree From the Savannah College of Art and Design. Melinda Hurst Frye has worked professionally in the field of photography, shooting everything from editorial work to medical imagery. In addition, Melinda is an accomplished photographic artist, exhibiting her work both locally and nationally.

I am anxiously awaiting what's next.

Brea Souders

I have watched Brea Souders over the last few years, her images are interesting, creative and thoughtful. She was recently highlighted by Dan Cooney and his Emerging Artists Auction group, and I see her continuing to grow and make a place for herself in photography. She is completing a Darkroom Residency at the Camera Club of New York, and has recently been part of Pause to Begin in Rochester, NY and at Katzen Museum in Washington DC, part of Washington Project for the Arts

I look forward to her future photographic contributions.

about Brea and her visual stories -
The photographs in this series are interpretations of superstitions that I have collected from various sources, including old texts, internet forums and word of mouth.

I’m interested in the way superstitions reflect the human urge for story telling and our need for control in an uncertain world. They act as portals to a childhood sensibility, and can transform an ordinary scene into a mysterious tableau, rich with new meaning. While researching this project, I found that superstitions morph from place to place, but certain themes remain constant. I became interested in what these themes can tell us about our fears and desires, and how they shape our psychology from an early age. Using both meditated and candid photography, I look to capture the whimsy and tension that superstitions evoke in us, and to illuminate the scope of our collective imaginings.

S. Doyle Hammond

I was introduced to Shauna Doyle Hammond last year when she was selected for our New Directions 08 show. I loved the strong structural lines, play with light, and great scale of her architectural work. I have since found a number of artists exploring this topic, and I think she was ahead of the curve and at the top of the class. Take a look.



about Shauna -
Shauna Doyle Hammond is a Seattle-born photographer currently based in New York. She earned her MFA in 2007 at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and has a BA in Art History from UCLA. Her most recent series, Nightfall, encompasses urban landscapes where commonplace subjects gain a heightened sense of mystery at night. Using only available light, trees are quietly illuminated in the darkness and the strange beauty of concrete is transformed into something otherworldly. Her upcoming work builds upon these themes, focusing on urban development and its impact on the neighborhoods of New York’s five boroughs.

David Trautrimas

The future of architecture has arrived.
I have found one of it's potential architects.
David Trautrimas has my vote.
Clever, creative, inventive and just a little bit off, as well as almost hospitable. Someplace I could call home. I don't know if it is the simplicity of the design, his household objects as his materials, or the open space around each building, the fact that there is green. The trash can in Sprinkler House is a nice touch. ecologically conscious, no wall-e here needed. Blade Runner meets Norman Bel Geddes.
He has had a recent show at KlompChing gallery in NY, in their group Visual Morphology show, and is coming up at Photo-Eye in July with our own Mitch Dobrowner, and that should be a great show.

images shown - Waffle Iron Heights, Iron Apartments, The Fishing Complex and Sprinkler
House