PAST EXHIBITIONS (2009)
January 16 – February 21, 2009
"The New American Project" - Jill Enfield
A fine art and editorial photographer, Jill has taught handcoloring and non-silver techniques at schools in New York City and throughout the USA and Europe. Her work is in the collections of The Amon Carter Museum, RJ Reynolds Co., Southeast Banking Corp., Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín in Colombia, The Boca Raton Museum of Art and Hotel Paris in La Jolla, among others. Her personal work has appeared in many photography magazines throughout the world.
Jill’s work was one of 42 images selected from thousands on file with the city through the HERE IS NEW YORK Archive to commemorate the fifth anniversary of 911. The prints hung along the fence surrounding Ground Zero in Manhattan for a year. She has been a “Legend Behind the Lens” for Nikon and featured on their website several times. Her book on non-silver techniques titled: “Photo Imaging: A Complete Guide to Alternative Processes” published by Watson-Guptill won the Golden Light Award for Best Technical Book of 2002 through the Maine Photographic Workshop. And more recently Jill was the recipient of a faculty development grant from The New School to produce a new body of work using the wet collodion technique.
“New American Project” Fine art photographer Jill Enfield found that her lower Manhattan neighborhood is constantly changing both culturally and commercially with the arrival of immigrants seeking for what America means for them, thus the concept of being American is evolving—questioning identity and nationality, countering and co-existing cultures, nullifying cliche remarks such as “American as apple pie” and replacing apple pie with pizza, dumplings, knishes, pierogies, and falafels. Enfield’s family immigrated to the United States in 1939 because they were Jews fleeing their hostile homeland of Germany. Enfield and her siblings were the first generation of American born family members and have called New York their home for several decades. Enfield always wondered—how different, if at all, are the new immigrants from their offspring that either came as very young children or were born here like Enfield? How different are the stories? How different are the people? How different are the journeys? Can we all share the same path for a moment or maybe a lifetime?
In these uncertain times, with the aid of the media and the government, Americans are constantly being terrorized, but not by terrorism itself, but by the threat of it. We are in constant anticipation of the arrival of terror. The media and government has provided us with many faces of destruction and many portraits of threat and imbedded terrorism in the landscape of immigration. Is fear now more American than freedom? What is the process of becoming “American”? The media leads the public to believe that the new immigrant is the new threat to America, but should we not simply believe the new immigrant is the new American?
Enfield initiated the “New American” project to explore these reasons of immigration, to present a
portraiture of that moment within a journey. Photography relies on the balance of time and light in order to bring all to the surface. The wet collodion process requires long exposures, so each subject must sit still for 45 to 60 seconds. In that stillness, the narrative journey begins for the photographer and the viewer. In that silence, the viewer becomes the listener.
Enfield desires to show all she hears during the time-lapse within these portraits and to open the viewer’s eyes and ears, hoping to capture a far-reaching heritage behind the eyes of the subject. Enfield encounters each face, seeing the generations that have passed and the possibilities of generations to come. She looks for the child within the eyes and envisions the aged and enriched person that he or she will be. The face becomes the most immediate and tangible display of heritage and genealogy and homeland.
-Jennifer Huh, 2007
March 6 – April 10, 2009
"Artifacts of a Curious Mind" by Mark Osterman
Theses are one-of-a-kind hand-tinted ruby ambrotypes and gold-toned salt prints from collodion negatives.
Described as a combination of performance art, surrealism and steam punk, Mark Osterman’s imagery draws its inspiration from uncommon life experiences and lays it before the viewer with the consummate skills of another era. Osterman, who actually performed traveling medicine shows from the back of a 1919 Model T Ford for twenty years, is generally known today as the foremost historian of historic photographic processes. Osterman’s obsession with history and arcane technologies is combined with whimsy and a narrative that sets his images apart. When his work was described as surreal, Osterman replied, “the images are simply records of memories….. it’s my life that’s been surreal.” Unlike others who are attracted to historical processes as a primitive alternative to digital, Osterman wields them for the subtleties only possible at the highest level of expertise.
Artifacts of a Curious Mind combines four bodies of work. "Free Show Tonight", is a set of eight sequential glimpses of a medicine show performed by gas light on a summer’s evening. Made on burgundy colored glass, they are ambrotypes; a process dating from the 1850s. The series called "Artifacts of the Process" is based on Osterman’s work in historic photographic processes. One plate, "Hesitation", illustrates the varnishing of an ambrotype at the point just before they occasionally catch fire with disastrous results.
The exhibit also includes luscious gold-toned, salted paper prints made from collodion on glass negatives. Like "Free Show Tonight", Osterman’s "Confidence" prints draw from memories of his traveling medicine show but are influenced by his childhood influences of Baron Von Munchausen, Rube Goldberg and Ogden Nash. Finally there are also prints from a collaboration of Osterman and a vaudeville show titled "Amnesia Curiosa", two actors who shared Osterman’s interest in spirit photography. These are the only image's in the exhibition that are not self-portraiture, allowing Osterman a free hand to direct the performance with wonderful results.
More information about Osterman’s work, the medicine show and the collodion process can be found at his website.
Mark Osterman began research in historic photographic processes while attending the Kansas City Art Institute in the 1970s. As the Process Historian for the Advanced Residency Program for Photograph Conservation at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Osterman teaches the technical evolution of photography from Niepce heliographs to gelatin emulsions by recreating each of these processes. In 2009, he will begin work for the Center for the Legacy of Photography at Eastman House.
He co-published and edited The Collodion Journal from 1995-2002 and the pre-1900 section of the Focal Encyclopedia of Photography.
Besides Osterman's work being featured in many private and museum collections, his work has been featured in numerous exhibits and several recent books; Photography’s Antiquarian Avant-garde, by Lyle Rexer, Coming Into Focus, by John Barnier, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes by Christopher James and Photographic Possibilities, by Robert Hirsch.
April 17 – May 16, 2009
Bromoil Process by Joy Goldkind
(View a sample of her work with the Bromoil Printing Process on YouTube.)
A recent press release from Silvershotz Folio for Joy does a good job in describing her work. (The press release is a pdf. so if you are having trouble opening it you might need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader - it is free.) EyeMazing has an article about Goldkind that talks about her "...haunting series of black and white portraits titled Girlfriends..." Look for her name over on the right hand side of the webpage and click on it.
Critical Mass 2008 lists Joy as apart of their top 50 scorers. And Luminous Lint tells of her other upcoming show at the Museo Nazionale della Fotografia in Italy plus you can read Joy's about her Adagio series of images.
July 3 –17, 2009
Room with a View: Stereoscopic Views from Past to Present
This is an exhibition dedicated to stereoscopic photography. The exhibit is in conjunction with the National Stereoscopic Association's 35th Annual Convention held July 8-13, 2009, in Mesa Arizona at the Phoenix Mesa Marriott.
This exhibit will feature stereo cards, vintage viewers and cameras, View Master items, and many more past to contemporary stereoscopic photography.
Participating artists: Boris Starosta,
Christopher Schneberger,
Jeremy Rowe,
Kris Sanford,
Larry Ferguson,
Ray Zone,
Tom Dory and Ernie Rairdin.
For more information about the convention please visit the
National Stereoscopic Association's 35th Annual Convention's website.
September 3 – 25
"Happy Hour 9 to 5" Angela Franks Wells
Angela will be showcasing a variety of
copper plate photogravure prints along with black & white traditional
gelatin silver prints.
Angela Franks Wells is an educator and a fine art photographer based in Arizona. She has given numerous artist lectures and workshops of alternative photographic printing processes around the Phoenix Valley. She is recognized for her knowledge of copper plate photogravure process.
The exhibition is a further look into
“Parts and Labor”. Please go to
artist page for more information on
“Parts and Labor”.
October 2 – 29, 2009
3rd Annual "Photography Re-Imagined" an
Alternative & Historical Process exhibit and Juried Competition
This exhibit featured alternative and historical processes.
See our winners this year after a National and International call for entries went out and were selected by juror Jill Enfield.
For more information about Jill Enfield please visit her
website or you can read about her as one of our
past exhibitors.
November 6 – December 18, 2009
"The Grand Old Plastic Camera" A Retrospect by Neal Winter
A unique collection of
gelatin silver prints in a limited edition.
Neal uses a plastic or toy camera called the
"Holga". Photographers took to using the Holga for its surrealistic, impressionistic scenes for landscape and still life photography. In this respect, the Holga became the successor to the 60s
"Diana"and other toy cameras previously used in such work. Neal chose this camera because of its magical properties. There are selections from four different bodies of work that remain a continuing series in this exhibition.
Neal has traveled extensively over the years photographing several areas including Chico Basin Ranch. This 87,000 acre working cattle ranch derives its income from grazing and running cattle. His largest body of work is derived from several trips to Mexico. The states included are Baja California Norte, Sur, Sonora, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Quintana Roo, Yucatan and Campeche.
The Sand Dunes series was taken in Algodones Sand Dunes near El Centro in the Imperial Valley of southern California. The dunes were used to film parts of Resident Evil: Extinction as well as the Tatooine scenes in Return of the Jedi. His Tree Series includes photographs from Arizona, Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon, New York, New Mexico, and Colorado.
His Tree series were taken in the United States in the following states: Arizona, Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon, New York, New Mexico and Colorado.
Gallery Location and Hours
