Photo Nominal 1992

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We are grateful to the following businesses for their support of this exhibition : DeBell Vending Company, Inc.

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The FORUM Gallery Jamestown Community College 525 Falconer Street Jamestown , New York 14701 (716) 665-9107

Dorian's Plus / Sam Paladino Register Graphics Stage Left Studio Printing

Gallery Hours: Tuesday Saturday 10 a.m. 5 p.m .

(Wednesdays and Thursdays 8 p,m.)

Gallery Staff: Dan R. Talley, Director Michelle Henry, Assistant

Programs of The FORUM Gallery are funded in part by the Student Assistants: Jamestown Community College Foundation , The Faculty Todd Guynn Student Association at JCC, The Mid Atlantic Arts Founda足 Nelida Ruiz tion in partnership with the New York State Council on the Elaine Raymond Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation Gallery Development Committee : and our corporate and individual members.

Nancy Bargar Gloria Lasser Renate Bob Julia Militello The FORUM Gallery is an Associate Member of the National William Disbro Don Mudge Association of Artists' Organizations.

Mike Fitzpatrick Alberto Rey Robert Hagstrom Lois Strickler Unless otherwise noted. catalog illustrations have been John Hiester Gary Winger supplied by the artists. All dimensions are listed in inches Cletus Johnson with height preceding width , then depth.

Catalog design: NeoText Catalog production: Michelle Henry Production assistants: Todd Guynn, Nelida Ruiz Catalog printing: Register Graphics, Randolph, New York ~1

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1992, The FORUM Gallery

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In a strange and somewhat unsettling way . reviewing the entries for PhotoNominai '92 was like a dizzying fast­ forward recap of the state of imagery today of this contemporary wonderland of photographic information and photographic re-formatlon we inhabit. The twenty-eight car­ ousels of slides (roughly some 2.200 pictures) that arrived on my doorstep held everything from nostalgic. heartwarming visions of domesticity to conceptual commentary on social ills. from pretty still-lif es of flowers to haunting visions of abandoned indu stri al spaces. The works looked backward and forward si­ multaneously. They car­ ried anger and melan­ choly . blame and intro­ spection . Protected be ­ hind the lens. artists were seers. yet they were with ­ out exception still also edgy participants . I was 11 ,""0 sent a vast grab-bag of visions that left me think­ rng how unsteady tile ground is today . how ar­ bitrary the choices. how incomplete each image is in and of itself. Photography. regardless of its realist inherit­ ance. can perhaps never really describe our world. It can simply be a vehicle for circumscribing events. for re-seeing worldly experiences. for eroding factuality.

What became clear in viewing this multitude of photo­ graphic images was that the medium has been pervasively used here as a language. as a mere tool. Photography for these practitioners is often a means of transposing the world. of distorting the medium's seeming objectivity to thwart

Show

Susan

certitude and highlight psychological orientations. The usual page -size format of the traditional photograph has virtually been abandoned. and with it so has the scale of the literal of reading and of illustrational illusion. In the most marginally photographic of these images . reality takes on tinges of the abstract. and the scale of subjectiVity and of kinesthetic effects.

Many of the artists in the show revel in the alchemy of their craft in its elemental chemical and luminary magic and metaphysical trans­ formation. This romance of the medium may be self -conscious. yet it is nonetheless powerfully seductive. Even the more familiar social documen­ tary works in the exhibi­ tion tend to vacillate simi­ larly - between stark so­ Cial statements and an ambiguous irony that lies part way between cyni­ cism and sympathy. Often . the handling of the print itself carries the con­ tent: torn or collaged. the manhandled image subliminally comments on the (socio­ pOlitical) manipulation of the subject. Like so much art of today. these works proffer little solid ground . Instead. they beg us to question. and to look in new corners for meaning.

These artists incite us to pause however briefly to contem ­ plate the stream of images propelled through our lives . Into our souls . into our dreams.

Photography, regardless of its realzst inheritance, cal1 perhaps nel'er real1.v descrihe our \tvorld. It can simply he a l'ehiclefor czrcum.flcri hi el'ents, for re-seeing worldly experiences, for erodll1g factuality

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Krane

Mar k Abrahamson

Stanwood,

WA

1/2 x 123/4 inches.

The images in this series are aerial landscape photo­ -Electromagnetic Yule Tree Farm, 1990, Cibachrome print,

graphs of the Stillaguamish and Skagit River watersheds 191 /2 x 123/4 inches.

near my home in rural Stanwood, Washington. From a slow flying airplane at low altitudes, I make aerial maps with my Selected Exhibitions: camera that abstract elements within the watersheds. The Solo exhibition , 55 Mercer Street Gallery, New York, NY

farmers, other land owners, and the forces of Nature continu­ 1991

ously redecorate and redefine the landscape . I like to call the Solo exhibition , Columbia College , Columbia, MO. 1991

resulting images "earth drawings" I'm most interested in Solo exhibition , Benham Studio Gallery, Seattle. WA, 1991

how color texture, and form work within each. The Current Works 1991, Society for Contemporary Photogra­ Cibachrome process helps accentuate and punctuate tex­ phy, Kansas City, MO, 1991

ture, and produces floating reds and gorgeous shades of green and blue. The forms I discover below take me back to Chautauqua National Exhibition ofAmerican Art, Chautauqua,

a simpler time. But with closer inspection, the world is much NY 1991

Photowork '91, Barrett House, Poughkeepsie , NY 1991

more complex.

National Works on Paper, University Museums, University

We must take better care of our natural environment. In City, MS, 1991

the past two decades, the water quality of both river systems has declined dramatically. Once legendary runs of salmon and steelhead have been decimated . Poor logging practices Reviews, Publications, and Catalogs: have increased sedimentation and exacerbated flooding.

New American Talent: The Seventh Exhibition, catalog ,

Pollution from herbicide and pesticide misuse, failing septic Laguna Gloria Museum , Austin, TX, 1991

systems and household hazardous wastes, and poorly man­ Dakotas International, catalog, University of South Dakota,

aged dairy farms foul the rivers and the marine waters of Vermillion , SO, 1991

Puget Sound. Development has increased runoff and de­ The Tallahassee Florida National. catalog, University Mu­ stroyed wetlands as we race to pave over the countryside. seum at Florida State , Tallahassee, FL, 1991

The disastrous double flooding of both rivers this past winter Artists and the American Yard, catalog, Wustum Museum ,

should be taken as a warning that we must change our ways.

Racine, WI. 1991

20th Annual Works on Paper Exhibition, catalog, San Marcos,

TX,1991

-Stillaguamish Spring, 1990, Cibachrome print, 19 1/2 x 12

"In China, He Shutters When He Sees Red," by Ron Glowen,

3/4 inches.

-AI's Auto Wrecking, 1990, Cibachrome print. 123/4 x 19

The Herald, Everett, WA, October 8, 1987

1/2 inches.

-Stillaguamish Arabians, 1990, Cibachrome print , 123/4 x

Education: 19 1/2 inches.

D.D.S., University of Washington , Seattle. WA. 1970.

-Five Generations, 1990. Cibachrome print , 19 1/2 x 12

B.A., Whitman College , Walla Walla. WA. 1966 .

3/4 inches .

-Stillaguamish Equestrians, 1990, Cibachrome print , 19

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Mark Abrahamson , Stillaguamish Spring, 1990, Cibachrome print, 19 1/2 x 12 3/4 inches.

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Pinky/MM Bass , Earthbody Forms I, from South Carolina Seduction , 1990, toned silver gelatin print, 32 x 40 inches.

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Susan Oaboll , Armor XXVI, 1991 silver gelatin print, tape, 17 x 13inches.

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Christopher Giglio, Untitled, 1991 silver gelatin print, 6 3/8 x 5 inches.

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Carter Hodgkin, Differential Histogram - Bone, 1991 photosilkscreen and gouache on Japan paper 50 x 39 inches. Photo by Orcutt Photo. Courtesy of Berland-Hall Gallery .

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D. Lantz . Magnolias of Compassion, 1989. silver gelatin print. 24 x 20 inches.

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Andrew

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Arcata,

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Bresson described as The Decisive Moment. The photo­ Photography has always been a fine art to me. The first graph Our Lady of the Cabbages is one result of this type of photograph I saw which really excited me was an image by image·making.

Paul Caponigro. It was a simple close-up of an apple but it I feel that my work is an ongoing exploration in both self became a beautiful universe before my eyes. It taught me to expression and social reflection : A mirror and a window. look at the world not as how it was, but as how it could be.

My photographs are usually about people and objects -Chicago, IL, 1991 silver gelatin print, 9 x 14 inches. that relate to society. I photograph people and their feelings ·OurLadyofthe Cabbages, 1990, silver gelatin print, 9 x 14 because they often mirror my own emotions. I see and feel many things while working on my photographs ; loneliness, inches .

•Tiajuana, Mexico, 1990, silver gelatin print, 9 x 14 inches. despair acceptance , hope , shame and exultation. In my 'Untitled, 1990, silver gelatin print, 9 x 14 inches. photographs, I try to show more than what is seen on the ·Untitled, 1990, silver gelatin print, 9 x 14 inches. obvious visual level. I want to feel what is really happening 'Untitled, 1990, silver gelatin print, 9 x 14 inches. and to convey a sense of those feelings in my pictures. I want -Untitled, 1990, silver gelatin print, 9 x 14 inches. the viewer to be a part of the image when they look at it, in the sense that they should feel something too.

My images are meant to lead viewers through the scene Selected Exhibitions:

New Directions '91, Barrett House Galleries, Poughkeepsie,

as if they were looking into a window while at the same time NY 1991

having it reflect back his or her own thoughts. They are intended to be images that continue in one's mind . I feel Selections '91, Eye Gallery , San Francisco, CA, 1991

Photowork '91 , Barrett House Galleries, Poughkeepsie , NY

these photographs are successful if they ask more questions 1991

than they provide answers. To enhance the sense of Solo exhibition, Ambiance Gallery, Eureka, CA, 1991

ambiguity, I purposely print emphasizing highly contrasting National Exposures '90, Sawtooth Gallery, Winston-Salem ,

darks and lights. The darkness draws the viewer into the NC , 1990.

image. I do not want the viewer to see and know everything Naked Truths , Foyer Gallery, Humboldt State University,

at a single glance. They should feel some uncertainty. The Arcata, CA, 1989.

viewer should bring his or her experiences and ideas into the viewing process just as I bring mine into the image-making process.

Education: M.A.. Photography, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA,

I work best by intuition. I would describe photographing 1992.

as a strong feeling , a bond, between the image and myself.

B.A., Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA, 1990 .

I have that feeling even when I'm uncertain about the intent of the image. I work by intuition because it allows me to collect images spontaneously. then re-analyze them at an­ other time. When I work the streets, the focus of my attention must be ready at all times to capture what Henri Cartier-

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Andrew J. Ortiz, OUf Lady of the Cabbages, 1990, silver gelatin print, 9 x 14 inches.

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Lynnda Pardoe, Power Plant, 1987 infrared photograph, silver gelatin print, 20 x 24 inches.

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Thomas Tulis, Men on Bench, 1985, silver gelatin print, 11 1/2 x 17 inches.

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