Posts made in July, 2010
LIZ HICKOK {JUROR’S SELECTION}
(Photo credit: Liz Hickok, Jell-O Mold #1; Juror’s Selection)
(Photo credit: Liz Hickok, San Francisco in Jell-O; Juror’s Selection)
Some people prefer Paris in black and white, San Francisco it seems is made to be rendered in Jell-O. Photographer Liz Hickok‘s dessert based cityscapes give Bay City living a precarious and literal uncertainty. Cast from Jell-O filled architectural molds, Hickok’s meticulously crafted scenes are dramatically lit and occasionally feature hand painted back drops. Quick to decay, her luminous city is at once comic and sad, always captivating.
In her own words:
I create glowing, jellied scale models of urban sites, transforming ordinary physical surroundings into something unexpected and ephemeral. Lit from below, the molded shapes of the city blur into a jewel-like mosaic of luminous color and volume. The gelatinous material also evokes uncanny parallels with the geological uncertainties of San Francisco’s landscape. While the translucent beauty of the compositions first seduces the viewer, their fragility quickly becomes a metaphor for the transitory nature of human artifacts.
I have always been interested in architectural scale models of cities, and how photography can play with the viewer’s sense of scale, blurring differences between the real city and the constructed one. Once I began building my own model cities out of Jell-O I found that the jiggly, iconic childhood dessert is not only perishable, but also uncontrollable. Each time I take a picture of one of my cityscapes any building may begin to sweat or even liquefy, taking on a new persona.
The video component to Hickok’s project can be seen here:
Check out the rest of this series and more of Liz’s work at www.lizhickok.com
Read MoreNATALIE ARRIOLA
(Photo credit: Natalie Arriola, The Art of the Kill)
With The Art of the Kill, photographer Natalie Arriola makes what’s for dinner a very complicated question.
In her own words:
Read MoreWhether the photographer captures part of a scene which stands before her or creates her own, she focuses on a single aspect or element of that scene and freezes it in time. This act forces the viewer to look where she might not have looked. In my image, The Art of the Kill, I have attempted to force the viewer to look beyond the ritual art of taking our daily meals. I have attempted to manifest the relationship between the flesh of the creatures we consume and our own flesh.
PAUL MARQUARDT
(Photo credit: Paul Marquardt, Dollar Drift)
From a distance, Paul Marquardt’s Dollar Drift resembles a Vija Celmins painting. Up close, this visual subterfuge emerges as a subtle statement on mindless waste.
He writes:
Communicating with people of all ages, nationalities, and persuasions is my primary concern, using visual metaphor, surprising juxtapositions, and humor to comment on social issues. My attempt is to reach the pre-conscious mind where our ideas form, surfacing preconceptions for review and, perhaps, for change.
See more of this project at www.commonthings.com
Read MoreMATTHEW GAMBER
(Photo credit: Matthew Gamber, Transparent Seven Inch from the project Any Color You Like)
Matthew Gamber’s Transparent Seven Inch was featured in the Center’s Consumption exhibition. His ongoing series Any Color You Like examines two tone representation in a kaleidoscope world.
He writes:
The photographs in Any Color You Like are an experiment in how photography can confuse our perception of information. These photographs are of objects whose primary function is to stimulate our perception of color. A black-and-white image might depict an object of the present, but its character is forever is locked into the past. When these items are rendered in a traditional black-and-white format, the information that remains is merely an abstraction of its previous form.
More of Gamber’s work can be seen at www.matthewgamber.com
Read MoreKLEA, MITCH, GUNNAR
Toasting the success of past Center exhibitors. Keep those updates coming!
(Photo credit: Klea McKenna, Untitled (Lagunitas Creek), from the series Slow Burn, 2010)
Klea McKenna recently received the 3rd Hey, Hot Shot! Curator’s Choice Award. In addition to being featured on the HHS blog, Klea will receive a selection of seven books published by Aperture.
You can read more about McKenna in her 2009 interview on Nymphoto.
(Photo credit: Mitch Dobrowner, Storm Cell)
Mitch Dobrowner is turning up the heat with his captivating new black and white series Storms. Dobrowner is featured in Elemental, a three person group show at photo-eye gallery. The exhibition opened July 9th and will run through September 4, 2010 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Storms was also recently awarded first prize in the Professional Nature category at Prix de la Photographie, Paris 2010 (PX3).
(Photo credit: Gunnar Conrad, Lime Creek Avalanche Path)
Colorado photographer Gunnar Conrad was also honored by the PX3 2010 – his series Colorado Snow Flurry received second prize in the Nature category and third prize in the Abstract Fine Art category. His image Yellowstone – Twenty Years After the Fires, won third prize in the Nature category.
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