Photographic Visions – Summer 2022
A curated international photography exhibition
July 28 – August 20 (1st session) and August 25 – September 17 (2nd session)
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Photographic Visions is a biannual exhibition at PH21 Gallery, showing mini-series of the works of selected artists who submitted their portfolio for our solo exhibition competition. Our aim is to celebrate the work of photographers whose portfolio is progressive and visionary, forwarding photography in the 21st century.
Photographic Visions – Summer 2022 presents three images (in the form of mini-series) from twenty photographers in two sections.
To find out more about the photographers, please click on their names to visit their websites.
Exhibiting artists:
July 28 – August 20 (1st session)
Hidden behind the bark and among the worn crevices of dead trees, lies stories of the imagination. The pictorials in this series are taken from pieces of driftwood - the dense bones of the forest laid to rest on the beaches of the Pacific Northwest. Heavily manipulated through the use of light and shadow, an extraction process takes place. A world of imaginary characters comes to life by influencing patterns and discarding the irrelevant. Open to interpretation, each work is an attempt to balance the matrix - those things we see when in fact they are something completely different.
During the blisteringly hot days in the American South, I share the common respite of humid nights. A break from petty teenager fights, a polarizing political climate, the oppressive monopolies, homophobia, and the church.These are the conditions that inform my practice. While my work has dealt with these themes within the contemporary, it wasn’t long before I found these concerns in the historical.
The Untended Garden is a visual reflection structured in three acts – the expectations of women as informed by society and culture, the transformation that women reach as they break through during their coming of age, and the resolution of self that comes from the acceptance of flaws and the reality of aging. By combining still life and self-portrait photographs with experimental photographic alcohol transfer methods, this project explores multiple facets of the cyclical nature of life in a garden as a metaphor to reflect on the experience of women.
RED BLOOD
If there is one constant in the life of a photographer, it´s the thousands and thousands of encounters, some of them fleeting, whose permanence in the memory is based on the photograph taken, and others accompanied by long conversations or true stories lived in common. […]
Certainly, we share neither country nor language nor religion, but the blood that flows through our veins has the same red colour and perhaps that should be enough.
This is Water examines things above and below the surface, shifting mediums and bending light. Inspired by a commencement speech from David Foster Wallace, it seeks to remind us that essential things are all around us, hidden in plain sight. The images in this mini-series reference the theatre-derived concept of “breaking the fourth wall” where a character becomes aware that they are a character in a story and steps out of the scene to directly address the audience.
Dieter Provoost
Dieter explores the border between nature and city, urban and landscape, past and present. He does so using old, historical analogue techniques: really authentic. Or not? For him, the transitions of buildings and humans are an everlasting source of inspiration. He always shows us what's missing: love.
Three presented works are part of my SOLOS series, on which I started to work in 2021 and continue to do so. The idea of Solos series is to create so-called ‘speaking’ abstract works, to approach the usually somewhat dry abstract art world with an innovation and tangibility which would become a solid proponent of the works, a soloist. This goal is resolved via contrast: in form, in colour, in materials and composition of the works from the Solos series. I also wanted ‘to animate’ abstract works with warmth and lyricism. Solos in this collection are about human feelings and our way of expressing it.
Megan Sinclair
In “A Preservation of Character” I am grappling with living under the weight of continual self-defense and documenting the use of removal as a tool to process and heal trauma. Through analog self portraits I am letting down the walls that both protect and suppress her and looking inward at what is left. I am exploring what androgyny means for me as a woman trying to find safety, and recognizing vulnerability as something that once came easily. The intimate moments that make up this series are an exercise in honesty, and a longing for innocence.
Krisztina Szalmás
These photographs provide an insight into the unique blends that can emerge from the two elements of sunlight and water. The combination of these components result in scenes that the naked eye would not be able to capture naturally. These pictures create a window through which such phenomenons become observable.
This series is a photographic representation of my inner sense of the spirit of the times. The feeling that humanity simply does not have time for a manner of behavior that is still often conditioned by its predatory animal nature and too underdeveloped emotional intelligence. The feeling that the world is extremely fragile, very small, already standing on the edge of a precipice, and that we simply have no other world and will not have one.
August 25 – September 17 (2nd session)
My focus in photographing vintage signs stems from my appreciation for each sign's uniqueness and the craftsmanship involved in making each item: each sign truly is a work of art. The fact that weathering changes the appearance of signs, combined with property owners and/or real-estate developers who may not see value in preserving old signs, compels me to continue documenting signage and other elements of roadside America that remain today. My main series of photographs, "Roadside Relics," began in 2010 and continues today.
Madison Casagranda
The tintypes of The Black Stories Project embody the history of photography and the history of racial inequity specifically in the state of Utah, drawing a connection between the history of racism and the dialogue about race today. The Black Stories Project is made up of the portraits and voices of members of the Black community here in Utah, and stands as an effort toward opening the conversation, understanding the past and changing the future narrative of our history. I hope for a future day when we can each challenge our own deficit thinking, develop the willingness to confront uncomfortable truths, and possess a truer, more empathetic understanding of each others’ experiences.
#fake | don’t accept pretty
Pretty photos of flowers from my garden or recycled gift-wrapping carefully arranged on my office scanner? Look again. One scene, two narratives. A constructed reality. A small act of deceit. World events unfolding. Fact and fantasy intertwining. Two narratives. Which do you choose to believe? Sometimes it’s easier to acquiesce than call it out; accept pretty. ‘Take these seeds and put them in your pocket…’
Paul Gravett
Starting with selfies that are posted to Instagram and tagged #selfiegay, I explore the intersection of photography and contemporary art to create evocative, painterly likenesses of personality and mood. This series considers how gay men see themselves and how they want to be seen by the world as they put themselves on public display. In the #Selfiegay series I consider masculinity, standards of beauty, and the gay male gaze.
Zsuzsa Hullan
I am a member of the Comedy Theatre of Budapest and have been awarded the Aase-prize and the Golden Cross of Merit of Hungary as an actress. One area that especially interests me is theatre photography. As an actress, I am witness to some truly extraordinary moments in the theatre, and I hope to convey aspects of my chosen profession with a perspective not necessarily available to everyone.
The aesthetic approach of this series attempts to de-sexualize the body in order to negate the prevalent and inherently sexualized gaze and embrace ambiguities between the body and identity. The abstract overture and infrared process within this body of work is an attempt to negate the sexuality of the nude figure by working in ambiguous areas of the body that are initially unrecognizable, pulling the viewer into a visually articulated awareness via an absence of the traditional framing of the gaze.
Stefan Neagu
Nude photography says more about the author than about the model photographed. I'm more interested in the suggestive character than the descriptive one, one of the reasons I prefer black and white photography... What does a photogenic body mean? What is photogenia? Something that, transformed from three- to two-dimensional, reveals harmony. I love the geometry of shapes and I look for the elegance of lines in a given frame. Beauty is such a subjective term! Beauty, for me at least, means harmonious, balanced proportions. Beauty is something that causes a break to creep between an inhale and an exhale.
Each time we experience beauty I believe we attach or shift into the deeper structure many call the divine or the transcendental or the ether. Through experiencing beauty we get a glimpse of this plane or place or structure. My work for the last 25 years has been about revealing the beauty in places not often considered. This entire collection, “Glimpsing Ether,” is an exploration and a pursuit of beauty that can be found by shifting focus, literally and figuratively. It’s about seeing the world differently.
As a social worker and as a visual observer I have always been interested in how other women saw themselves; the goals they set for themselves, the hopes and dreams that they had pursued or abandoned; their self image and their self esteem. Our self esteem is greatly influenced by negative messages that come from our relationships and culture. Now, in 2022, in America, the Land Of The Free, the questions and the struggles remain and we are now facing a new fight to make decisions regarding our own bodies.
I am recognizing and accepting that loss is irrecoverable, that I can never return. I am trying to comprehend that past disappointments, suffering, and melancholy, are meant to mature and transfigure, and shift me. These images are my catalysts – figments to move me from the dark to un-dark, to kindle my transformation.