Kathie & Lucas Cichon
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As artists who collaborate on over 50 percent of each others work, we have developed an approach allowing both of our visions to appear in the finished artwork. Our new series, Mask-a-Raw, celebrates the beauty in the unconventional. It is a collection of handcolored black and white photographs of nudes with masks. The unusual coloration becomes a compositional element, in the photograph, as well as avant-garde of the image. Masks attest to the depth of identification of individuals with disguise. The traditional commedia dell'arte basic characteristics thought to be universal to the practice of masking: simultaneously an act of simulation or mimicry and of disguise, masking could be alienating and transporting, intoxicating and liberating. At the same time, to be masked privileges the wearer, protecting subjectivity and privatizing individual identity: being masked displaces meaning from who one is to how one behaves. "an interregnum of vertigo, effervescence, and fluidity in which everything that symbolizes order in the universe is temporarily abolished so that it can later re-emerge,"
Like art itself, fundamentally about unmasking, disclosing the unvarnished truth hiding under a veil of false and arbitrary information. The wearing of masks, then, could serve to reinvigorate, renew, and recharge individuals. The most notorious of mask types has been thought to be the black mask, associated with amorous intrigue and mysterious plots against prevailing powers.
The wearing of masks becomes a kind of release from, even a compensation for, the decency and prudence deemed necessary throughout the rest of the year. the effect of the mask in providing release from dominant moral codes must have been considerable.
Valerie Gates
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This series of nudes was influenced by turn of the century masters such as Juia Margaret Cameron. It is an exploration of mythology, spirituality, and gender. The double exposure images were done in the camera and shot with 35mm and 4x5 film.
Robin Bartholick
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“(O)ne might think that Robin Bartholick was born in the wrong
century. In this world, men still wear homburgs and bowler hats. Women
are still seen with petticoats and parasols. Circuses are still the greatest shows on earth.
His subjects seem about as grounded in old-fashioned reality as can be — until you notice that most of them are doing impossible things in unreal dreamscapes.
Bartholick’s early-20th-century look, however, comes from cutting- edge, 21st-century technology, such as Photoshop and the Canon EOS-1Ds digital camera. Each photo is painstakingly assembled from several other images, manipulated digitally and then stitched together to create a believable tableau of often-unbelievable scenarios.
“I worked on them like a painter, dealing with the proper perspective,
getting the right lighting,” . . . (for the) black-and-white images,
which sometimes require several days to complete. “One of the hardest
things is keeping the light even for all the various elements.” -
Randy Woods, PhotoMedia Magazine
Darren Saravis
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The Bodytext Project involves using projected text slides as a light source rather than conventional lighting.
I have developed various techniques to enable the text to render with clarity on bare skin. There have been
many technical difficulties to rendering the text in the photograph, with months spent of trial and error just
modifying one variable at a time until it worked. The model always writes the projected text. The effect on
the viewer is a dissociation from the voyeuristic “model-as object of desire”- since the model’s own
thoughts are projected onto her, she is viewed with layers of meaning.
This series is an intersection of two themes in my own life: 1) an ongoing interest in the creative application of digital technology and 2) a fascination with popular media and our perception. I have an ongoing interest in combining nature/primitive technology with contemporary technology. My work as an industrial designer keeps me in touch with sophisticated technology to transform hand sculptures into perfect mathematically defined forms. The popular media exhibits the female form for its own capitalistic interests, often fueled by high technology. The ubiquitous female image is automatically gauged as an object of desire and trophy, devoid of deeper content and animal basis. The Bodytext Project has given me an opportunity to explore these tensions- why do we associate the nude with glamour and envy, and how can we view the nude as one of nature's creations?
The model’s reaction to this project has really surprised me. Much of the subject matter that they’ve brought in has been dark and deeply personal. All of the models were very animated after the photography sessions and offered their thoughts and opinions about the work- so much so that I believe the models became more emotionally involved at some level than I was. "Where are we lead by these images that unite the sexual and the textual? What are we to make of these competing layers of reality? A piece of paper (or a computer screen) becomes the canvas for the image – the image is of a woman who has herself become a canvas for a further image. The images of the body/text project present word and form equitably. The model wears a self-written projected text tattoo. The multiple layers of meaning emanate from the model's intimate persona; body form, thought and text. The landscape of the photograph, the subject matter, is the woman herself." (Rachel Maize, 2007)
Haik Kocharian
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Our life is nothing more then accumulation of countless moments. They are not all extraordinary or memorable in fact, most come and go unnoticed as we rush through our busy daily tasks. And yet, each single moment is important. A small, self contained capsule of time, it evokes an emotion that can effect us on a profound human level.
In some ways my work is a direct visual representation of those same moments. People I encountered, places I’ve been, relationships I’ve experience. It is also a constant and perhaps subconscious attempt to stop the time, to take a pause, to marvel the surrounding world and hopefully, to tell the story of a very quick passing moment in life.
Douglas Hope Hooper
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Photography
has the power of realism. I take this realism, add a little doubt, and
create fantasy. We experience the physical world and sense something
unseen beyond this reality. My joy is to create images reflecting a
sense of reality along with a glimpse of the dreamworld beyond. I play
in that narrow zone which has elements of reality, and then something
beyond our common visual reality. I get a thrill from beautiful colors,
gradations, juxtapositions, compositions, and textures. I see these
elements and desire to capture and share them.
Wendell Minshew
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Wendell has photographed his surroundings and the West Coast for over 23 years, resulting in a range of subject matter that includes landscapes, waterscapes, seascapes, mans impact on the environment, modern and historical buildings, still life, abstracts, portraits, and figure studies. Wendell works in a variety of mediums, including traditional black and white, color, and manipulated Polaroid SX-70’s
Hope Harris
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It never ceases to amaze me, the information about each being that becomes evident in a photograph. Every face has etched upon it the story of a life, and each one is beautiful and revealing in its own way. I am always thankful for the endless visual possibilities... It is with great joy and gratitude that the work is done.....always a group effort involving subject, photographer, and the energy of the universe.
Catherine Lau
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Catherine
Lau regards photography as a universal language, a kind of intuition wisdom
and an irresistible passion. Figure art is the eternal motif of all forms
of art. As a woman photographer, Catherine Lau senses the human body more
than just a sensual figure: it is the beauty of the balance and harmony,
the beauty of the movements of lines and shapes and the beauty of the
sensual symbols of life and all the existences. With the light and shadow
as her supreme inspiration, the Figure Photographs she has created reveals
to you her passion for life, the eulogizing of the love, the praising
of the nature and the pursuing of the freedom. This is her long journey
to search for the mystery of the art and the true meaning of the life.
Joy Goldkind
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Joy Goldkind uses the historic bromoil process as a tool to express her fine art portraits. The images are hand-crafted using brush and inks, which adds a layer of mystery to the photograph. These images capture the spirit of the person rather than the realist representation of the subject. Here we see a mixture of fantasy and realism that capture the inner most persona of a person. Bromoil was used by photographers of the pictorial movement because they wanted their work to have a more artistic rendering. It is this step away from the clear photographic interpretation that I am looking for in my images. This process uses a bromide silver gelatin image, which is then bleached to remove the silver content. Lithographic inks are used to replace the silver that has been removed by the bleaching.