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Posted on September 18, 2018

Las Sombras/ The Shadows
Kate Breakey
October 18 – December 2, 2018

Reception October 25, 2018
R. J. Kern Talk October 25, 2018 7 PM

White snake
© Kate Breakey, “Coachwhip”
White bird
© Kate Breakey, “Common Ground Dove “
White owl
© Kate Breakey, “Barn Owl”

White rabbit
© Kate Breakey, “Desert Cottontail”

Las Sombras/The Shadow

“I picked the dead coyote up off the road. It had been hit by a car, probably at dawn that morning. It was surprisingly heavy, but its coat was finer and softer than I had imagined. I was worried it would not fit under the enlarger and that my paper wouldn’t be wide enough, and it was going to be hard work digging a hole to bury it afterwards.

In the mid 19thcentury the daughter of a biologist, an English woman called Anna Atkins (1799-1871) began a decade-long obsession with collecting and documenting algae and seaweed.  They were the earliest form of photography, pictures made without a camera, ‘photogenic drawings’ or photograms, in which the subject is laid on light sensitized paper and exposed to light, in this case the sun, using a process known as cyanotype. She self-published this collection in a series of volumes called ‘British Algae’.  They were beautiful, otherworldly images of white amorphous shapes floating on a deep blue background. She labeled them in neat Victorian handwriting with their classifying genus and species.

When I first put a eucalyptus leaf on a piece of photographic paper in the dark, in an art school in Australia roughly 130 years later, my fate was sealed – my own obsessions set in motion.  The natural world is full of wondrous things to look at and to chronicle and catalogue. In my own way, I have devoted myself to that end.

After I laid the coyote on the photographic paper and gently stroked the dirt and pebbles off its glossy coat and arranged its tail, I thought about Anna arranging her seaweed with the same care and with the same anticipation.

These images are the ghostly shadows of the remains of living creatures, burned onto photographic paper with light and with love, to make a lasting impression.”

– Kate Breakey

 

Kate Breakey is internationally known for her large-scale, richly hand-colored photographs including her acclaimed series of luminous portraits of birds, flowers and animals in an ongoing series called Small Deaths published in 2001 by University of Texas Press with a foreword by noted art critic, A. D. Coleman.  Since 1980 her work has appeared in more than100 one-person exhibitions and in over 60 group exhibitions in the US, France, Japan, Australia, China, and New Zealand. Her work is held in many public institutions including the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos, the Austin Museum of Art, and the Australian National Gallery in Canberra.   Her third book, Painted Light, published by the University of Texas in 2010, is a career retrospective that encompasses a quarter century of prolific image making.

Her collection of photograms, entitled ‘Las Sombras / The shadows’ was published by University of Texas Press in October 2012.   This series is a continuation of her lifetime investigation of the natural world which in her own words is ‘brimming with fantastic mysterious and  beautiful things.

A native of South Australia, Kate moved to Austin, Texas in 1988. She completed a Master of Fine Art degree at the University of Texas in 1991 where she also taught photography in the Department of Art and Art History until 1997.  In1999, she moved to Tucson, Arizona. In 2004 she received the Photographer of the Year award from the Houston Center for Photography. She now regularly teaches at the Santa Fe Photographic workshops, and The Italy ‘Spirit into Matter’ workshops.

Her landscape images – selected from a life-time of photographing all over the world – were published by Etherton Gallery in a Catalogue entitled  ‘Slow Light’. She currently works with gold-leaf to produce a modern day version of an archaic process called an Orotone, and also uses encaustic wax, a continuation of her interest in ‘blurring lines’ between media.

 

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Floor Plan

Amy Rindskopf's Terra Novus

At the market, I pick each one up, pulled in by the shapes as they sit together, waiting. I feel its heft in my hand, enjoy the textures of the skin or peel, and begin to look closer and closer. The patterns on each individual surface marks them as distinct. I push further still, discovering territory unseen by the casual observer, a new land. I am like a satellite orbiting a distant planet, taking the first-ever images of this newly envisioned place.

This project started as an homage to Edward Weston’s Pepper No. 30 (I am, ironically, allergic to peppers). As I looked for my subject matter at the market, I found that I wasn’t drawn to just one single fruit or vegetable. There were so many choices, appealing to both hand and eye. I decided to print in black and white to help make the images visually more about the shapes, and not about guessing which fruit is smoothest, which vegetable is greenest.

Artistic Purpose/Intent

Artistic Purpose/Intent

Tricia Gahagan

 

Photography has been paramount in my personal path of healing from disease and

connecting with consciousness. The intention of my work is to overcome the limits of the

mind and engage the spirit. Like a Zen koan, my images are paradoxes hidden in plain

sight. They are intended to be sat with meditatively, eventually revealing greater truths

about the world and about one’s self.

 

John Chervinsky’s photography is a testament to pensive work without simple answers;

it connects by encouraging discovery and altering perspectives. I see this scholarship

as a potential to continue his legacy and evolve the boundaries of how photography can

explore the human condition.

 

Growing my artistic skill and voice as an emerging photographer is critical, I see this as

a rare opportunity to strengthen my foundation and transition towards an established

and influential future. I am thirsty to engage viewers and provide a transformative

experience through my work. I have been honing my current project and building a plan

for its complete execution. The incredible Griffin community of mentors and the

generous funds would be instrumental for its development. I deeply recognize the

hallmark moment this could be for the introduction of the work. Thank you for providing

this incredible opportunity for budding visions and artists that know they have something

greater to share with the world.

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