Solo exhibition competition, May 2015
Motonori Shimizu (Japan): Individual
Exhibition dates: June 25 – July 15, 2015
Honourable mentions:
Nicola Jayne Maskrey (UK): Chasing Shadows
Kathryn Oliver (USA): The Wild Garden of Childhood
Réka Szent-Iványi (Hungary): There's Nothing Wrong with That
Associate’s choice:
Dan McCormack (USA): The Nude at Home
Please click on the names for more information (gallery, bio, artist statement).
Nicola Jayne Maskrey
Chasing Shadows
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My practice takes place in the dialogue between the inner self and the every day, working with sequences of images to create narrative structures. I am interested in the dichotomy between the transient and the constant and how this can be challenged according to the context in which it is viewed, and much of my work features vegetation as an expression of this. Often working with long exposure, I seek to acknowledge the longer moment that is distilled into the single frame.
Based in photography I enjoy experimenting with a range of equipment and techniques, including analogue and digital cameras, scanography, mobileography, and alternative printing processes. My work is intended both for print and projection based installation. Born in Sheffield, UK I currently live in London, UK. I hold a BA (Hons) Fine Art (Combined and Media Arts) from Sheffield Hallam University, and an HNC in Photography from City of Westminster College.
Website: www.njmaskrey.com
Chasing Shadows
Chasing Shadows is a night journey, a peaceful sleepwalk through a silent world bereft of people. As the evening light transforms the everyday into a dreamlike state, familiar urban landscapes disappear underneath resilient vegetation.
For this series I used long exposures on 35mm black and white film to record the contemplative stillness of the night, the only movement in the wind blowing through leaves. I hand printed the images with lith developer on old fibre based paper to create single edition prints with a tactile quality and degraded aesthetic reminiscent of illustrative drawing or etching.
I then reworked high resolution scans of the images into a multilayered “film” for large-scale projection. The projection paradoxically re-presents the frozen moments as transitory echoes of the original, each dissolving into the next in a slow, rhythmic loop.
Text and photography by Nicola Jayne Maskrey.
Kathryn Oliver
The Wild Garden of Childhood
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I discovered a love for making pictures as a small child to express my inner life of impressions. As I grew, creative aspirations led me to bring this inner world forward through art. Self taught, my creative journey has repeatedly taken me into the field of metaphor and myth through painting, photography, dance and theater.
I first picked up a camera when I was sixteen and was struck by the power of the immediacy of the image making process. In my twenties though I focused on painting and exhibited throughout the Boston area. In my thirties I combined painted projected images with dance and theater in the midcoast area of Maine developing large productions in collaboration with other artists. Recently I have entered a more introspective time in my life and returned to photography as my aesthetic vehicle of choice. My professional arts background of painting, theater and dance feeds the work I do now as I blend hints of all these elements into my images. I currently create and exhibit black and white fine art photography and photo encaustics.
Drawn to the symbolic language of myth and archetypes, I am forever on a quest, seeking a visual narrative that evokes an internal recognition of nature — something in exile, lost, or hidden — yet leaves an impression inwardly known.
Website: www.kathrynoliver.com
The Wild Garden of Childhood
The Wild Garden Of Childhood is an exploration into the untamed vitality and sacred beauty of being young. That universality of raw spirit, where emotional authenticity reigns naturally and fiercely – dancing on the edge of innocence.
The most precious of stories
are stored away
for safe keeping,
Somewhere
In the wild garden of childhood
Awaiting
... becomingness
Text and photography by Kathryn Oliver.
Réka Szent-Iványi
There's Nothing Wrong with That
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Réka Szent-Iványi was born in Budapest, Hungary. She received her BA in Business Studies from Oxford Brookes University, Budapest, and then she attended the MA course in photography at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest. She became a member of the Young Hungarian Art Photographers (FFS) in 2012. Since graduation she has been working on different photography projects, presenting at exhibitions nationally and internationally. Currently she lives and works in Budapest, Hungary.
Website: rekaszentivanyi.com
There's Nothing Wrong with That
I have always been interested in extraordinary situations in life, unusual people and characters. In my work, I am always inspired by “otherness”. Over the years, it became clear that sociological questions and social issues are the center of themes addressed by my photography. I have a desire to gain insight and zoom in to reveal the uniqueness of individuals by introducing their most private and intimate personal sphere.
One of my brothers always had very peculiar friends and acquaintances. Whenever I heard about them or met them I was fascinated by their unusual and unconventional way of life, their obscure relationship to their surroundings and often times outlandish physical appearance. It is mainly because of these encounters that I am able to function and behave naturally in situations many people might consider awkward or uncomfortable. I believe that it is because of this casual but attentive approach that I am able to gain trust and get people to open up to me.
I like to combine elements of documentary and staged photography. In my autonomous work I prefer to use a film camera.
Text and photography by Réka Szent-Iványi.
Dan McCormack
The Nude at Home
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After completing an MFA in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1970, I taught Photography on the college level for over forty years. Currently I teach photography full time at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY where I head the photography program. I have been active in creating and exhibiting my personal photographic imagery also for forty years. I won a NYSCA CAPS Fellowship in Photography in 1982 and I published a small monograph of nude images of my wife, Wendy, “Body Light: Passages from a Relationship” in 1989. In 1976, I was a founding member and served for ten years on the Board of Directors of the Catskill Center for Photography, now known as the Center for Photography in Woodstock. In 1988, I was a founding member of Level 3 Gallery in Philadelphia. Level 3 was a photography collective where membership entitled participation in group and solo shows. I actively participated in Level 3 Gallery for two years while living in Accord, NY. I won the Figurative Photography Grant of $ 5000.00 in March 2009 from the Ultimate Eye Foundation, a not for profit corporation in California.
Website: ulsterartistsonline.org/user/130
The Nude at Home
I use the extreme wide angle distortions of the round oatmeal box pinhole camera and the digital colorization to create a series of visceral images. Through successive pulling of curves in Photoshop, B&W values are replaced with color. The “Nude at Home” is a subset of a larger pinhole camera project begun in 1998. In this series, begun about five years ago, I photograph the model nude in her home, apartment or studio. With the model in her space, all the objects in the image are a part of the life of the model. Then the pose, the furniture and the long, two minute exposures reveal an intimate portrait of the subject.
Text and photography by Dan McCormack.