light

Corona | J. Felice Boucher

Posted on June 10, 2020

J. Felice Boucher‘s beautiful image Goddess is one of our featured images from our online Corona exhibition. The radiant light emanating from her subject is a moving tribute to the power of a soul. Her exhibition at the Griffin in 2019, Center of Quiet, featured portraits of women facing forward and showing strength in their quiet moments. We asked her some questions about her work and how she sees light in her day.

How does light play in your work?

Light is photography. I went to visit a young photographer at her studio and she said that “old timers wait for the right light. They should just take the damn photograph and fix it in PhotoShop.” That broke my heart. It took me many years to understand light and to really see it.

We highlighted your image Goddess from Center of Quiet, an exhibition featured at the Griffin last year. The Goddess image really showcases her power and strength, radiating from her soul. How did you work with her to capture that?

I ended up photographing two beautiful sisters. I met one of the sisters at a bank where she was a teller. When I photographed her she invited her sister to join us and I photographed her too.

I love fabric and textures so I found fabrics that would highlight their gorgeous faces and skin tones. They have such strong and beautiful features so I wanted to capture those.

“Red Headed Girl” © Felice Boucher

Your images have a beautiful textural quality to them, like paintings. What led you to this technique to accentuate the quiet strength of your female subjects?

I do try to capture the strength of women in a direct sensuous but not sexual way. For me there is a huge difference between the two; sensuous and sexual. The light and texture in the Old Master paintings are compelling to me. So I add texture of colors over my photographs to give them a painterly look.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

I haven’t photographed since the Covid-19 hit us. I had been photographing my models in a little corner of my bedroom and it is no longer a possibility to bring people into my home. But I am always photographing in my mind even without a camera in my hands. I love watching how light falls on someones face, on a landscape, or a strong shadow created by a flower in a vase.

“Forgiven”, © Felice Boucher

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

Good question. Who knows. On my walks I pass a neighbor’s mustard colored dingy and rust colored chickens in the warm evening light…that pulls at me.

About J. Felice Boucher –

J. Felice Boucher has been a photographer with a career that has spanned 27 years. She earned her BFA from the Maine College of Art, as a non-traditional student and single mother of two young children. And was awarded the Master Degree, Craftsmanship Certification by the Professional Photographers of America. She opened her photography business and photographed weddings, portraits and commercial projects both locally and around the country for over 23 years. Recently she has given up the wedding and portrait work and now focuses on real estate photography and her fine are work. Her fine art photography has appeared in museums, galleries and private collectors.

Corona | Kevin Hoth

Posted on June 8, 2020

Holding a mirror up to our surroundings isn’t just an idea for Kevin Hoth. In his series Everywhere and All at Once, shown at the Griffin in 2018, Hoth uses a mirror to give us that fuller view. Reflection is important, especially now, in so many ways. In seeing the landscape as a fully sensory lived and shared experience, Kevin has given us a way to experience light and life in a new way. His image highlighted in our Corona exhibition, Overdub, is a perfect example of light and the ideas of Corona.

How does light play in your work?

Mohawk © Kevin Hoth

It’s funny, I almost never think about it but that is because I am so intimately involved with it on a daily basis. Light is always the raw material in my work, of course, though I don’t generally make work about it unless it relates to a particular project I am working on. During this time of coronavirus I have indeed been tracking the shadows in my home as a way to trace time. There is an arrangement of oblique light that falls on my daughter’s piano that I jokingly call “cubist piano time.” I’ve thought about making an image every time it falls like this and then create a tiled image of all of these fractured pianos. Some plant shadows have featured in some of my work but it usually is just for play or observational practice with an instant film camera. We are also creatures borne of light. All the sustenance that we require comes from sunlight.

We are featuring your image Overdub, from your series Everywhere and All at Once. Your creation of a visual landscape that incorporates multiple directions showcases a unique way of seeing. How did you find your vision? What was the first image in the series that pushed you forward to work that way?

Overdub, © Kevin Hoth

I have always enjoyed noticing other spaces in reflections. About ten years ago I made some images looking into windows and I thought about how there were three spaces represented: the surface of the glass (a flat space but still a space to be rendered), what was inside the building, and what was behind me. So I think the consciousness of multiple spaces within one frame, from one vantage point was a growing seed inside me. The Everywhere And All At Once project really came from a mix of play and accident which is where all great discoveries come from. I was experimenting with mirrors back in 2012 for about a year and then set it aside as I didn’t know where it was going. Later a friend asked about the series so I picked up the mirror again and took it with me on hikes and road trips. I made an image of a mountain side connecting to a cloud, then one horizon line connecting into another and that is where my “ah-ha moment” occurred. As a photographic observer I often feel like I can see everything at once at one time. It’s almost a physical sensation. This project is a way for me to evoke that sensation. I also feel most alive in open, natural spaces and the expansiveness is something I am trying to show albeit from my singular vantage point.

Does the use of the mirror also hold a metaphorical gaze for you? In how we look at landscapes? What would you like viewers of your work to walk away with after seeing your photographs?

Cloud and Rock © Kevin Hoth

I suppose I’d like people to see what I see or at least feel some sensation of how I observe. I want the gaze here to be almost a disembodied or maybe a universal one. Although I am conscious that not all people have the same comfort level or privilege of being alone in a landscape. Some have noted a visual fragmentation in these images which one could liken to a Cubist viewpoint. Again, the idea here is merging several angles of view into one image even though I am combining them in one instant. I have made more of a conceptual connection to the way people often view landscapes through a phone screen. I’ve made a fair amount of this work in National Parks and when you stop at a prescribed viewpoint you see the phenomenon of the quick phone grab. We often are too busy looking through our phones to frame the right shot. Of course, I am also “guilty” as I am meditating my view through a camera.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

I appreciate small things maybe in the same way a child would. Light falling on the floor from my skylight, shadows from a tree shifting on my window shades in the afternoon. A red-orange poppy coming up in my yard is a celebration for me. Color fills me up in extremely energizing ways. My current work is around flowers and I am endlessly fascinated by them. My daughter is also a constant source of joy and light for me. I’m not sure how I would be doing without long hugs with her.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

I have been experimenting with instant film for quite some time and am currently working on a series called Immortal Chromatic. I photograph flowers that keep their color even after dying and then I create large instant film mosaics from these source images. I cut and burn the instant film “tiles” as they develop. The theme of creation and destruction has been part of this work with flowers across multiple projects. I am also integrating paint and thread into these physical pieces as well. They are photographs but they are also sculptural objects.

about Kevin Hoth –

Kevin Hoth is an artist working with photography, video and performance. His current work deals with perception and the manner in which multiple spaces can be formed into a singular frame. Kevin also works heavily with deconstructed instant film to explore themes of creation/destruction, truth as it is represented in photography, as well as beauty and transience.

Kevin Hoth in his studio

Kevin has shown work in over one hundred exhibitions nationally and internationally, including recent exhibitions at The Dairy Center for the Arts, The Rhode Island Center for Photography, The Houston Center for Photography, and The Center For Fine Art Photography. His work will be part of the Qualities of LIGHT symposium at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson in January of 2020. Recent awards include Top 200 Critical Mass, Center For Fine Art Photography Portfolio Showcase 12 and top ten finalist in the New Orleans Photo Alliance 2018 Clarence John Laughlin Award. Kevin recently completed an artist residency in January of 2019 in Brazil and explored how varied perceptions of time can be represented.

Kevin has taught college courses in photography, graphic design, and multimedia art at numerous universities and currently teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder where he has taught since 2011. He lives with his daughter in mountainous Boulder, CO and gets regularly woken up by coyote cries, owl hoots, and horse whinnies.

Fun facts: He did a stint as a full-time graphic designer for an Amazon.com company, made an interactive garment with force sensors that played odd bodily noises back in 2006, collaborated extensively with a modern dance company as a VJ, and played bass in a Seattle band that once played live on KEXP-Seattle.

To see more of Kevin Hoth‘s work, log onto his website. Look here follow him on Instagram.

Corona | Deborah Bay

Posted on May 18, 2020

Deborah Bay‘s Traveling Light series plays with vibrant saturated color, angle, shape and form to create new ways of experiencing how light and reflection plays on materials. We first saw Deborah’s work at the Griffin in 2016 in our Bullet Points exhibition. This series, Traveling Light plays with the visual scale, crafting abstract visions with sharpness and clarity. We asked her a few questions about the series, and how light plays into her day.
How does light play in your work?

Probability Theory, from series Traveling Light

Light was the point of origin for this body of work. I had been thinking about some of the Bauhaus light studies and became interested in using color to further explore how light moves across optical objects.

In your series Traveling Light color and shape are intertwined in each image. How did this series come about?

Angular Velocity, from series Traveling Light © Deborah Bay

In addition to contemplating the work of Moholy-Nagy and others, I also was influenced by the abstract geometries of constructivism and the color field movement. Those ideas all came together as I began experimenting with tabletop constructions using small lenses and prisms. Most of the objects are only about 1 or 2 inches tall, so there’s a wonderful disconnect when you see them in a 40×40 print.

The color comes from gels placed in front of small lights around the shooting table. As I was photographing, I became fascinated with the way that various colors traveled over planes of the objects, separating them from the background, or created thin chromatic circles around lenses with a wash of color in the background. The images are all produced in-camera.

There are endless combinations of light and color. How do you know when you have the right combination?

Triangle Theorem, from series Traveling Light © Deborah Bay

It is amazing how many permutations there are of light and color, so it was a challenge to get the color blend and other factors in just the right combination. With a digital camera, though, I could shoot numerous images with slight variations since the sensor would capture the color and depth of field in sometimes surprising ways. And, of course, intuition always plays a role.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

Mondrian Dialectic I, from series Traveling Light

During these Corona times, my routine on the best days has been to spend the afternoon in the studio, where the windows are covered and tiny lamps illuminate the tabletop setting. But in the mornings, I like to walk in the park and then review the previous day’s shoot in my home office, which has a lot of light filtering through the trees.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

Circular Thinking, from series Traveling Light © Deborah Bay

I’ve been exploring an idea with the working title of Traveling Light 2.0. It’s based on the same concept of using color to investigate how light moves across surfaces but with a much more textural component. Some of the images are totally abstract in a very painterly fashion, while others are more representational. The surfaces have been altered in such a way as to further disrupt the diffusion of light and color. It’s still early in the investigation, so I’ll save the details for another time.

About Deborah Bay –

Deborah Bay is an American artist who specializes in constructed studio photography. She has exhibited throughout the United States, most recently at Photoville Brooklyn and Texas Contemporary 2018. Her work is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Dorsky Museum of Art at State University of New York at New Paltz. The British Journal of Photography has featured her work on its cover, and her images also have appeared in Popular Photography, BBC Focus and the Oxford American, among others. She lives in Houston, Texas, and holds graduate and undergraduate degrees from The University of Texas at Austin.

To see more of Deborah Bay‘s work log onto her website. She is represented by FotoRelevance in Houston, Texas.

Corona | Blythe King

Posted on May 15, 2020

Today’s featured Corona artist is Blythe King. A featured artist in 2017 in our Griffin online gallery, Blythe’s creative constructions of women radiate out of our screens. Combining materials to elevate ordinary women to extraordinary beings, her work exemplifies the internal manifestation embodying light and life. We asked her a few questions about her work and how light fills her day.

A central focus of the Corona exhibition is based in light, both external and internal. Your portraits exude light and life. How does light play into your work?

My subjects are radiant beings. Transparent layers let light in and invite us to look beneath the surface. These women are liberated to reveal each individual’s complex, boundless nature.

My work transforms photographs of models from Montgomery Ward mail order catalogs (circa 1940-80) into evocative multi-layered portraits. Because subjects are freed from the social expectations and stereotypes of their original context of commodification, they shine anew.

Gold leafing animates my work. As light changes throughout the day, it alters the appearance of my portraits — illuminating the figure, making it flicker, casting a shadow.

Can you talk about how religion, faith and spirituality are infused in the work?

My subjects begin as mere clippings from discarded, forgotten Montgomery Ward catalogs. The models were presented superficially. It’s advertising. But through collage, gold leafing, and other techniques, they re-emerge and become a source of wonder and intrigue. It’s divinization.

I notice parallels between the poses, gazes, and hand gestures of fashion models in advertising and deities in Buddhist and Hindu art. I combine religious imagery with commercial images of women to create a pantheon of sorts. The women in my work strike me as familiar — but with a difference. They stand out to me because I see something extraordinary in them. My impulse is to honor them.

I hold an MA in Buddhism and Art from the University of Colorado, with undergraduate studies in Japanese religion and art at the University of Richmond. I’m a practitioner of Zen Buddhism. My experiences lead me to question how our conditioning — be it social, cultural, environmental, genetic — places limitations on how we understand who we are. Zen is liberating. It beckons a fundamental shift in perspective.

How did you first find the idea to combine materials? What was the moment you knew you had found your process to showcase your vision. What was the first image that was a result of that combination of layers?

I like that you asked how I “found” my process. It brings to mind the question that inspired Rebecca Solnit’s book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost: “How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?”

Making art is one path. For me, it’s applying the sum of my experiences. Through artistic experimentation, I’ve discovered a way to combine and further activate my interests in popular culture, vintage imagery, Buddhist philosophy, Japanese art, old paper, and feminist philosophy.

By removing limitations imposed by our conditioning, and opening possibilities for the ways we understand who we are, I find clarity. I’ve breathed life into old mail-order catalogs for almost 8 years. “Moonbathing” was the first commercial clipping to be divinized.

And thank you for mentioning “that combination of layers” in my work. It’s all done by hand. It’s important to me that the viewer see and feel how the physical layers — skins, if you will — interact. The image transfer process is my own. I arrived at it after overcoming the restrictions in hand-cut collages. My first body of work, “How to Take a Compliment,” presents subjects at their original scale. Since then, I’ve amplified and reduced subjects through scanning. That has made pieces more intimate or larger than life.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

Survival is a means to coronation. My subjects were mere paper but have lasted more than a half century to now stand as supernatural queens. We too can adapt and become our greatest selves through challenges.

There’s a cemetery near my home. I walk there because it’s perfect for social distancing. But I’m also taken by how beautiful the flowers and trees blossom in a place that honors death. I’m reminded of the Hindu goddess, Kali, who is at once a destructive and creative force.

Placed in this light, a pandemic is not only temporary but also a path to renewal. It’s part of the perfection, if you will.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

I have a solo exhibition coming in the fall of 2021 at Eric Schindler Gallery here in Richmond (VA, USA). I’ll have a whole new collection ready for that.

I’ve dreamed of being hired by Montgomery Ward as their collage artist. They’re still in business. I have convincing to do.

About Blythe King

Blythe King is a rising talent who currently breaks new ground in photography, collage, and the ancient art of gold leafing. Born in Pittsburgh in 1977, her work is heavily influenced by two legacies — the whimsical, social commentary of hometown hero Andy Warhol forged with traditional Steel Town resolve. King studied religion and art at the University of Richmond and the University of Colorado. She practiced Zen calligraphy with Stephen Addiss (The Art of Zen).

But it was a textile startup in quaint Breaux Bridge, Louisiana that brought her journey into focus. For iSockits, King fashioned wildly-successful tablet covers from vintage women’s shirts. Her latest fine art project, “Two Sides of the Same Coin,” is exceptional for its delicate but moving revelations. She rescues clippings from a range of vintage catalogs to open a fresh discourse around women’s issues. In addition to her art, King teaches creativity to underserved communities in Richmond, VA.

You can see more of Blythe King‘s work on her website.

Corona | Leslie Jean-Bart

Posted on May 14, 2020

In our newest online exhibition, Corona, we seek to illuminate the best part of our lives and lift us out of darkness. This is a difficult time, and we want to let the light in, lifting our souls into the light.

In science terms, a “corona” is a usually colored circle often seen around and close to a luminous body (such as the sun or moon) caused by diffraction produced by suspended droplets or occasionally particles of dust.

There is no greater way to celebrate our exhibition with the first in a series of interviews with the image makers that inspire us, lift us and show us how to find light in our day.

Today’s featured artist is Leslie Jean-Bart. The Griffin first highlighted his work in 2017, and we look back at it today as we talk to Leslie about this series, light and the idea of Corona.

How does light play in your work?

To have the shadow and the silhouette aligned as wanted, I needed not just the light, but also a certain angle of the light.

I never fail to see, to observe, and to follow the light. The presence and/or the lack of the presence of light at any degree is the key to it all for me. It is one of the fundamental elements that currently informs most of my work.

In your series Reality & Imagination you use the tidal reflection to illuminate life. Did you find the reflection first? Or did the reflections find you?

The most effective and efficient way for me to answer this second question about my use of the tidal reflection to illuminate life and as to whether I found the reflection first or the other way around would perhaps be for me to speak a bit in general about the framework of the segments of “Reality & Imagination” that these images are a part of.

My process there is a way of seeing driven by a frame of mind at the service of an idea. What I mean exactly is, I chose to accept the upside down world to being as important as if not more so than the right-side up world (frame of mind) as a context within which to explore the interaction that takes place between the culture of the host country and the culture of the immigrant living permanently abroad (idea), while I make use of the movement/motion of the tide with the sand to combine that frame of mind with that idea to tease life from the combination (way of seeing). Because of the frame of mind in use, the images created pull the viewer into a world that seems instantaneously both familiar and unfamiliar. The essence of creating that world is not only in the physical aspect of making the image, but even more so, in the frame of mind that permits me to find the suitable environment to interplay the combined elements.

Of course, light, timing, composition, patience, purpose, idea(s), being in the moment, being flexible, are all engaged in creating the image as the tide continuously and rapidly transforms each tableau anew in a fraction of a second. I have to remain focused and be present.

How did you first find the idea to capture contrast in organic shape and texture with the hard edge of light reflection?

It all came about by my need to support the phase of the idea I was exploring at that particular time.

There were a myriad of possibilities in the surroundings of the tide. It was simply a matter of observing, closely evaluating, and selecting an appropriate form(s).

How can a dominant culture be defined vs a culture that’s a guest? After careful evaluation, it was an obvious choice. A silhouette which is more solid, was to represent the host culture. The shadow which is more transparent was to represent the guest culture. By the way, both the silhouette as well as the shadow cannot exist without the presence of light. So there is a common need there. A common need also exists between the host culture and the immigrant culture. The Corona virus has made that definitely overtly apparent.

As I worked on each segment I mentally assigned a very loose characteristic or definition to that given segment. One segment was, say, where the host culture was in charge/doing the viewing, another was the immigrant interacting/doing the watching within the host culture, another was the immigrant culture interacting within its own community. How and what I shot at that particular time was very much influenced by the loose characteristics I assigned to that segment and whatever related thoughts were wafting in my mind on that subject.

But no matter how loose the given characteristics or definitions were, there is one physical element that I always defined for myself in a singular fashion. That element was the thin white/silvery line of light that sliced in one fashion or another through the frame. I always saw it in some form or another as the dividing line, as the border and entry point between the two cultures.

As a way to give a better understanding of what goes on during the actual shoot, let’s follow through with the last line from my answer to question above, “I have to remain focused and be present”.

My being completely present means that all research done and/or any thoughts about particular idea(s) are relegated to the deep recess of the mind. It is as if all information were stored in the electronic cloud, and the pertinent bit of information automatically downloaded itself to fluidly inform the image making process. The downloading happened so fluidly pure and fast that physical recognition at that particular moment is of no practical use and so that physical function is disengaged. (Only at the end of the shooting day while reviewing the images does the physical consciousness fully reengaged in that process, and the image files completely expanded themselves to fully reveal their contents. As I focus on an image of interest during the review, what took place at that moment while shooting is vividly replayed in my head.) It’s a surrender to what is, a surrender to the moment while absolutely not losing oneself.

That process of seeing has also become some sort of a blueprint of life for me. I always try to remain open, and to remain present, without losing a sense of myself.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

I try to create, that always brings in the light, especially when it’s all flowing. But a sure boost is to blast music at a high decibel with the headphone on for a short period of time. Unwise, but it works and it’s fun. Am spending time making videos about what I am doing, and how the shelter-in-place is affecting me.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

I just completed a new series titled “Echoes of Past Present”

Two short videos from the ones I have been making gives a visual idea about the series. Please see links below to view. The first link is the very first video done.

Echoes of Past Present Video One. Echoes of the Past Present Video Two.

About Leslie Jean-Bart

Born in Haiti where he acquired his love for the ocean, Leslie Jean-Bart has been living in New York City since he arrived in the US in 1967. After earning a master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University, Jean-Bart embarked on a photography career that resulted in the creation of images that have garnered awards and recognition.

Earlier days found Jean-Bart on staff at Sotheby’s and Christie’s where he was surrounded daily by the world’s greatest art. Freelance assignments took him all over the world, as he shot for clients in Japan, Brazil, Iceland, Cyprus and Portugal. His commitment to his craft and his defined vision, resulted in a variety of commercial projects, and several published award winning books. A special collage project of Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker for the Verve Music Group was cited for excellence.

Jean-Bart began exhibiting in 2001, when a number of his collages were part of the exhibit “Committed To The Image: Contemporary Black Photographers” at The Brooklyn Museum. From 2001-2003 he took part in a number of group exhibits at Monique Goldstrom Gallery
in SoHo, NYC.

During the last several years Jean-Bart put his career, but not his art on hold. Committed to the care of his mother who has dementia, Jean-Bart became her daily guardian. During this very trying time he soothed his soul by photographing water and reflections. The call to somehow combine the ocean or water and the camera was never far from his mind during the past two decades, and in 2009 the call became a mission and a project was birthed.

The ensuing series titled “Reality and Imagination“ is the culmination of years of working the science and magic that is photography and a never ending love of water, light, shape, form and collage.

To see more of Leslie Jean-Bart‘s work, visit his website.

Corona | Online Exhibition 2020

Posted on April 27, 2020

It’s spring, and we are all physically distanced and living via the interwebs to have shared experiences. At a time of renewal, time of reawakening, we are all yearning to break free. We hope to get outside, see the blooms on the trees, breathe deeply of fresh air, unafraid of life in the time of Corona.

Let’s brighten our outlook on Corona. In science terms, a Corona is a usually colored circle often seen around and close to a luminous body (such as the sun or moon) caused by diffraction produced by suspended droplets or occasionally particles of dust.

We want you to share your light with us. Send us your images of sunshine, light and spring. Metaphor, abstraction and suggestion of sunlight in addition to representational concepts are welcome.

We are looking forward to your visual contributions with our creative community.

It is NOT about the virus. There are other calls you can submit to for this. Because of what we have been receiving, we are going to have to change our rules that we will not be including everything that is submitted. We thought we were clear in our call. We provided 6 examples. We may respond to you and ask you to submit another image, but because there is not much time we may just remove it and move on. We are sorry for the confusion. – PT

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