‘Inner Nature’ takes as its theme the principle of interconnectivity— our beings are connected to a greater whole, and for this reason the effects of climate change and environmental destruction impact not just our lifestyles but also our deepest selves. Nature is a catalyst for an exploration of this deeper self-awareness; this ancient Taoist principle is fundamental to our relationship with the natural world, and this concept continues to resonate today- indeed, it is within a contemporary context that this idea is particularly salient. This group of Bay Area photographers work in a variety of formats, utilizing both traditional and experimental techniques. No singular style defines their practices, but the theme of the natural world making its home in one’s subjectivity comes through in the work of all the artists in the exhibition —oftentimes it is a world that is suffering, but that also holds much of the fragile beauty we so cherish, even if that beauty is found paradoxically in ruination, transmogrification, or destruction. Jessica Snow, 2017
Mikkel Aaland Sumi-e Photographs for The Sword of Heaven, 1989, archival ink on metal, 20� x 30�, editions 3/5
Elisabeth Ajtay Transient, 2014-present, lenticular print, diptych, 16.6�x 25� each, edition 4/5
Jules Greenberg ‘Fallen’ series XI and XIX, 2005, archival pigment print, 20” x 20” each, editions 3/5
Liz Hickok Experiments with Model Trees, Sets and Tests series, 2015, C-Prints, 20�x 24� each, editions 2/6
Mary Daniel Hobson Agate Beach, 2017, archival pigment prints bottled in mineral oil, total dimensions 14” H x 32” W x 8” D, unique
Judy Irving Six Scenes from the Salt Flats, 2004-2010, Digital prints, 6� x 9� each, framed together, edition 1/2
John Lindsey Teaberry, 2015, Pigment print on Hahnemühle photo rag, 23.5”x 31.5”, edition 1/5
Vanessa Marsh Man Chopping Wood, 2012, Archival pigment print from photogram negative, 11�x16� Courtesy of Dolby Chadwick Gallery
Mikkel Aaland Mikkel is the author of twelve best-selling books on digital photography, including Photoshop RAW, Shooting Digital, the first Adobe Lightroom Adventure (Iceland) edition, and the second Adobe Lightroom Adventure (Tasmania) edition. He has also been a popular workshop leader in the United States and Europe, and creates training videos in collaboration with Lynda.com and Adobe Press. Mikkel is the co-host of the Nordic Light International Festival of Photography held every spring in Kristiansund, Norway. His non-technical books include County Fair Portraits, (for which he made an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman), Sweat (an illustrated tour of international bathing customs, culminating a three-year project), The Sword of Heaven, Pilgrimage to Kailash and a recently published memoir, The River in My Backyard. Mikkel lives with his wife and two daughters in San Francisco and Telemark, Norway. www.mikkelaaland.com
Elisabeth Ajtay Born and raised behind the iron curtain and spending her formative years in Western Germany, Elisabeth is a conceptual artist primarily working in photography. Her work reflects upon Western culture with themes related to advertising, the psychological impacts of technology, and the notion of home while moving constantly between two different systems. She’s exhibited throughout Europe and the U.S., including inSPIRACJE and Art Moves Festival in Poland, as well as the Goethe Institute in Morocco, Prague, New York, and France. She’s exhibited in museum shows including MKK -Museum for Art and Cultural History, Dortmund, Germany and Blue Star Contemporary in San Antonio, Texas. Most recently she has exhibited with Alter Space and Savernack Street in San Francisco. In Northrhine-Westphalia, Germany, The Ministry of Education and Training is working with her series Zuhause/At Home for an educational series, encouraging discussions about the notion of belonging and nationality. She has a degree in Communications Design from the University of Applied Sciences, Dortmund and a MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. www.elisabethajtay.com
Jules Greenberg A San Francisco native, Jules studied at UC Berkeley, Yale, and Tyler School of Art in Rome. She was the recipient of the Center for Photographic Arts Jim and Betty Kasson Award, and her work has appeared in the book Art as Engagement: Art & Politics in California, by Peter Selz. Her work has also been published by Chronicle Books, Blue Sky Gallery and Leica World. Her series ‘Fallen’ was exhibited at FotoFest in 2006 and is in the collections of the George Eastman Museum, the Portland Museum of Art and the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. Jules has also worked with Farallon Films and HBO on numerous awardwinning documentaries and as a researcher for publications including the New York Times, Esquire, GQ, and Doubleday. www.julesgreenberg.com
Liz Hickok Liz is a San Francisco-based artist working in photography, video, sculpture, and installation. She received her MFA from Mills College in Oakland. She grew up in Delaware before moving to Boston to attend the Museum School and Tufts University for her undergraduate degrees. Her artwork is included in collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Blue Shield of CA, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and Mills College Art Museum. Her photographs and videos have been shown in many Bay Area venues, including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Jose Museum of Art, the Exploratorium, Southern Exposure, the Headlands Center for the Arts, the di Rosa, and the Napa Valley Art Museum. She’s exhibited nationally at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, MASS MoCA Kidspace Gallery, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Pittsburg State University, Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, and the Susquehanna Art Museum. She has completed public art projects with UCSF at Mission Bay, Scottsdale Public Art, and Walnut Creek Downtown. She’s currently showing a large-scale photo mural in Denver, CO. www.lizhickok.com
Mary Daniel Hobson At the age of 14, Mary became captivated by photography and has been pursuing it ever since. She studied art history at Vassar College and then pursued a master’s degree in the history of photography at the University of New Mexico. Her work ranges from collage to still life to bottling photographs in mineral oil. She’s shown at Modernbook Gallery, Seager Gray Gallery, Galerie BMG in Woodstock, Etherton Gallery in Tucson, the Camera Club of New York. Her work is also in numerous collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Albuquerque Museum, and the offices of Twitter. Her art can be found in many publications, most recently in Terry Tempest Williams’ book, The Hour of Land (Sarah Crichton Books, 2016), and in the limited edition artist book, The Man in Bogota (Pacific Editions, 2015). www.marydanielhobson.com
Judy Irving Judy is a Sundance-and-Emmy-Award-winning documentary filmmaker whose films include The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a feature documentary about the relationship between a homeless street musician and a flock of wild parrots in San Francisco. Other films include Pelican Dreams, about California brown pelicans and the people who know them best, and Dark Circle, a personal film about the links between nuclear power and weapons. From 2003 to 2013 she photographed landscapes, habitat restoration, and wildlife in the South Bay Salt Ponds, producing an online archive of over 5,000 images. She is a voting member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. www.pelicanmedia.org
John Lindsey John works in mixed media, photography, photomontage, video and sculpture. He studied digital media and printmaking at SFAI and he now lives in the Western Addition with his wife and two teenaged children. He is the director of The Great Highway Gallery in the Outer Sunset and also operates a graphic design consultancy. The beach and neighborhood community has fed his inspiration for both artmaking and curating, a prominent component of his body of work, with such shows as We Will all Live under The Sea: A Study of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Differing Feathers, and Stone Altars, group shows he’s curated and presented at The Great Highway Gallery. www.johnlindseyart.com
Vanessa Marsh Vanessa was born in Seattle in 1978. She earned her BA from Western Washington University in 2001, followed by her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2004. Marsh has exhibited across the United States, including the SFO Museum, Contemporary Jewish Museum, New Museum of Los Gatos, Richard L. Nelson Gallery at UC Davis, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco; Foley Gallery, New York, and the Sun Valley Arts Center. She has been awarded fellowships at the Headlands Center for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and Kala Art Institute, and was recently an artist in residence at San Francisco’s Rayko Photo Center. www.vanessamarshfineart.com
‘The master has mastered nature, not in the sense of conquering it, but of becoming it.’
Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell