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Tag: photography

Dealing. Ann Woo.

Do you believe in fate? I haven’t decided yet whether I do or not. If it is true that events in our lives are predestined, then it must be true that “fate is a cruel mistress”. This series of photographs by Ann Woo of a facedown playing card drove home to me the idea that we never really know the next card in the deck.

I find, though, that it isn’t the hand we’ve been dealt, but how we play it that is the faithful test of who we are. We’ve watched our best friends deal with crushing blows that might have destroyed others, yet they continue on full of grace and courage and love. Cancer patients unwilling to be a victim fight back with everything they have. A son turns tragedy into a life’s work in order to prevent others from the same pain. We may be dealt a full house or a just a pair, but if we know best how to play the cards in our hand, we can still come out a winner.

To see more of Ann Woo‘s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website.

February 3, 2015
Expectations. Julie Blackmon.

We all have expectations of life. Perceptions of what our ideal world would look like. Those expectations seem to be heightened these days by the images of perfect lives we are bombarded with daily via social media and lifestyle blogs. Every meal shall be perfectly garnished with stylishly mismatched vintage dinnerware! Children will be the very picture of tiny fashion perfection and their birthday parties shall rival that of the royals!

Taking her cue from the Jan Steen household, a 17th century Dutch painter’s style turned shorthand for a messy scene, photographer Julie Blackmon explores the disparagement between a society that is both “child centered” and “self-obsessed”.

In her domestic scenes, we often see no adult figures, only children, as if pardon this turn of phrase, the inmates are running the asylum. I apologize for that reference, yet it is what kept coming to mind as I was going through the portfolio. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad point of departure. Children need freedom and play, it is essential to their development especially in our over scheduled world. Blackmon is capturing these fleeting moments of the chaos of childhood, in all its messy, mythic reality.

To see more of Julie Blackmon’s work, please visit her website.

All images are via the artist’s website. Artist found via Robert Mann Gallery.

January 16, 2015
Filtered Visions. Matt Crump.

Instagram has changed the way we see the world. OK, maybe that’s giving the ubiquitous photo sharing app too much credit. But perhaps it has unleashed in many of us the desire to capture not only what we see, but how we see. The “candy colored minimalism” of photographer Matt Crump gives us a glimpse into one way of seeing the world around us.

I’ve found myself thinking about the way we edit and filter our experiences through the photographs we post. Often when Mr. F and I are out hiking or taking in a particularly moving scene, I reach for my camera or phone, but know as I snap the shutter that what I feel in that moment won’t be captured with the lens alone.

On the other hand, are we being conditioned to appreciate and applaud the manipulated version of life more than the natural? Or perhaps we are drawn to images like these for their transformative and transporting effect? Maybe it isn’t a question of one or another. And that’s OK.

To see more of Matt Crump‘s work, please visit his website and follow him on Instagram.

Artist found via I Need a Guide. All images are via the artist’s website.

January 9, 2015
Delicate Impermanence. Seung Hwan Oh.

There comes a time in this life when we come to the realization that we are, indeed, not going to be here forever. For some, this revelation takes longer than for others, but its definitely taken its hold on me recently. This series, Impermanence, by artist Seung Hwan Oh emphasizes the balance between creation, life, and destruction in these ephemeral photographs.

From the artist’s site– “The process involves the cultivation of emulsion consuming microbes on a visual environment created through portraits and a physical environment composed of developed film immersed in water. As the microbes consume light-sensitive chemical over the course of months or years, the silver halides destabilize, obfuscating the legibility of foreground, background, and scale. This creates an aesthetic of entangled creation and destruction that inevitably is ephemeral, and results in complete disintegration of the film so that it can only be delicately digitized before it is consumed.”

My mom’s illness has definitely caused Mr. F and I to think more closely about our own physical, emotional and spiritual health and what that means for our future. There are no guarantees, of course, but we’re trying very hard to move through each day with a focus on not only on cultivating our all too quickly approaching future, but more importantly, to be fully present in the now.

To see more of Seung Hwan Oh‘s work, please visit the artist’s website.

All images are via the artist’s website. Artist found via I Need a Guide.

September 15, 2014
Discordant Nature. Jessica Tremp

When we’re out hiking, I always notice something that seems so contradictory. One would assume that most people who hike are doing so for the enjoyment of the outdoor world. So why in the world would they think it is OK to leave their trash all over the trail? Man in general seems to have this sort of dysfunctional relationship with nature and in this series of photos by artist Jessica Tremp, I see the drama being played out.

Nature, in its ineffable beauty calls out to our spirits and our souls. We long to not just see it, but experience it, for it to become a part of us. But inevitably, our selfishness gains the upper hand and we do the very thing we hate– we become part of the problem. We drive our car too much, we let the water run while we brush our teeth, we throw away what we no longer want and so that our garbage fills what was once pristine. And then we cry over what we have done, cursing ourselves, only to continue the cycle day after day.

To see more of Jessica Tremp‘s work, please visit her website.

All images via the artist’s website. Artist found via The Artful Desperado.

September 12, 2014
In Pieces. Dean West + Nathan Sawaya

As we get back into the swing of normal life following our week in the wild, I’ve been struck by the obvious artificiality that surrounds so much of our landscape. Plastic flowers where real should be, fountains instead of waterfalls. In their In Pieces series, photographer Dean West and Nathan Sawaya present highly stylized, manipulated representations of modern life.

Upon first glance, these may appear as simple photographs, just as that strip mall facade from a distance might appear to be a row of historic buildings. But on closer inspection, we see that these are carefully crafted tableaus combining West’s photography with Sawaya’s LEGO sculptures to create an unreal reality. ( click on each image to enlarge the photo and see the LEGO elements better ).

To see more from the In Pieces series, please visit the collection website. You can check out more work from Dean West here and Nathan Sawaya here.

All images via the In Pieces website.

September 9, 2014
Woven Tales. Lala Abaddon

Artists are often stereotyped as a caricature of sorts– wacky, flittering, unorganized types who thrive on free expression. And while some of that is often true, many artists find creating in a highly deliberate, meticulous way to be the best fit for their mode of expression. For Brooklyn artist Lala Abaddon, her painstaking process of weaving photographs to create a new composition has as much to do with expression as any abstract painting.

Abaddon carefully hand-cuts existing analog photographs and then hand-weaves several together, deconstruction leading to new construction, old stories becoming a part of a new tale. The artist often juxtaposes intense images with more delicate ones, the compositions sometimes abstract, or hinting at a figure seen behind the visual curtain created by her woven technique. The texture and depth she creates isn’t just visual, but physical too, so that three dimensions are transformed first into two dimensions by the photographic process, then rebirther again in three dimensional form as a weaving.

Check out the artist at work–

To see more of Lala Abaddon‘s work, please visit her website.

All art images via the artist’s website, studio image via HiFructose. Thanks to SCAD curator Aaron Levi Garvey for introducing me to this artist!

August 26, 2014
The Artsy Nature. Jennifer JL Jones + Olympic National Park

Whenever Mr. F and I are away from the coastal Northwest for a long period of time, I find that what I miss most is the mossy trees and fern covered forest floors. These “Muppet trees”, as I like to call them, inhabit the moist woods in the Pacific Northwest and in this edition of The Artsy Nature, after spying Saline. Lumi. Breath., a gorgeous new painting by Jennifer JL Jones, I was immediately transported back to one of the loveliest spots in the Northwest.

photo | staircase hike, olympic national park, wa

art | saline. lumi. breath.( detail ) by jennifer jl jones, mixed media on wood, 72×72

On a foggy, cool morning in the early Fall of last year ( before the government shutdown closed access to the National Parks ), Mr. F and I began a short little jaunt into Olympic National Park that would be one of our favorite hikes of 2013. Not strenuous, no giant, sweeping views of snowcapped mountains, just the quiet hushed lushness of the temperate rainforest. Clouded skies cast a purplish light into the woods, only the dripping of the dew from the leaves and the fall of our feet on the mossy floor to be heard. If big mountains are outdoor cathedrals, woods like these are tiny chapels. Cozy and unassuming, you are left to ponder not on the grandeur of creation, but on its ever closeness.

More of Jennifer JL Jones‘ work can be seen on her website and, if you’re in the Atlanta area, she opens a solo show, SECRETsaline, at Alan Avery Contemporary Art this Thursday!

See more forays into The Artsy Nature here and check out my guest Artsy Nature feature on artist Jessica Zoob‘s blog!

Photo by Artsy Forager, art source linked above.

August 19, 2014
Fielding Color. Mitch Paster

I’ve been kind of obsessed with the atmosphere of color lately. From my #colorforaging2014 project on Instagram, to the Feminine Wiles series, to some newer ideas I’m exploring, color is in the forefront of my mind. I’m continually amazed by the way a slight shift in hue can change our perception of a place, a person, an atmosphere. In his Color Fields series, Brooklyn photographer Mitch Paster distills scenes down to the essentials of color.

As if viewed through a thick, opaque fog, Paster’s photographs leave us only with fields of color from which to glean any information about his subject. We can conjecture as to what we may be seeing, but there is no certainty. What we can get, however, is a feeling for what is there.. the bright warmth of light, the blue of sky. I am left, not really guessing, just basking in the color and light, blissfully ignorant as to what is there.

To see more of Mitch Paster‘s work, please visit his website.

All images via the artist’s website. Artist found via Uprise Art.

August 13, 2014
Collected Treasures. Jennifer Steen Booher

When I was a little girl in Florida, I always remember my mom collecting shells every time we went to the beach. She wasn’t( still isn’t ) a swimmer, but she loved going to the beach and finding treasures. Maybe it’s where my foraging instincts come from? Maine photographer Jennifer Steen Booher creates abstract portraits of a day’s experience and what was found.

prints available in The Trove, Artsy Forager’s Great.ly gallery

Whether the beauty of the craggy texture of a shell, or the shocking color of a piece of discarded plastic, each piece is a symbol of that particular instance, isolated against a bright white backdrop, even the ugliest trash becomes something special. After she has collected her treasures, Booher takes them back to her studio where they are carefully, meticulously arranged. The collections may seem random and haphazard, yet the artist’s eye finds common ground.

To see more of Jennifer Steen Booher’s work, please visit her website. Prints of Clematis Seedhead and other work by Jennifer Steen Booher can be purchased in The Trove, my gallery on Great.ly!

This post contains affiliate links. As a Great.ly Tastemaker and curator of The Trove, I receive a small commission on each piece sold from The Trove boutique gallery.

August 6, 2014

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