wall space gallery | the flat file

November 29, 2010

Evergreen – Collectible at wall space.

Filed under: Uncategorized — The Flat File @ 8:23 am

Evergreen, the creative collection from wall space gallery is available now.

This series, curated by Laina Malm-Levine, a new member of our team here in Santa Barbara, has found a way to discuss our love of branches, structure and the sense of groundedness we feel when in a forest of trees, our local parks, even our backyard.

Not content with a narrative about green, she looked for how we use this connection to our conifers, for shelter, decoration, contemplation and ultimately for strength to solidify a relationship to our surroundings. Complementing our exhibition in the gallery this month, Into The Light, we strive to balance our desire for a solid terra firma and a reach for the intangible source of  illumination, both spiritual and physical.

Inspired by a quote from David Paul Bayles, one of the eight artists included in Evergreen, Laina has culled together a group of artists whose love of the deciduous has follows that vision.

I have always been drawn to forests, especially what I think of as blue-collar forest. While I marvel at, and appreciate the magnificent specimens living in our national parks, they represent a very narrow view of our connection to trees. In a forest I see communities of beings, creating and collaborating in the rich cycle of living and dying.

We are excited to announce images available from the following artists, with prices starting at $200.

Bill Finger

Bill Finger - Beneath the Flowers

Jane Fulton Alt

Jane Fulton Alt - Burn No.26

 

Jens Haas

Jens Haas - Walk in the Park No.48

 

David Paul Bayles

David Paul Bayles - Pistol Butt Stump Tree

 

Laurie Lambrecht

Laurie Lambrecht - Lake Trees No. 6

 

David Ondrik

David Ondrik - Order No. 1

 

Gayle Stevens

S. Gayle Stevens - Goldenrod

S. Gayle Stevens - Goldenrod

 

Lex Thompson

Lex Thompson - Cordova Cinema

These images are available for purchase online or in the gallery for a limited time – This collection will no longer be available after January 31st. Each piece is a limited edition image in 2-3 sizes, at prices starting at $200.

For more information please contact the gallery

November 13, 2010

New Directions 2011 – submissions deadline soon.

Filed under: Uncategorized — The Flat File @ 4:18 pm

Stop Dreaming – time runs out this Saturday the 20th!

It’s getting close – time for the window of opportunity to close on this years submissions for New Directions 2011.

If you haven’t submitted yet, you still have time.

This is the 5th annual New Directions show – we found Joseph O. Holmes, Joelle Jensen and Priya Kambli all because of this great idea and exhibition. It’s a great opportunity to get your work in front of a bunch of people who can make a difference boosting your visibility, and maybe lead to more good things photographically down the road.

The prizes are truly great.

A Blurb book. A spot at Review LA. A portfolio feature in Fraction. Cool, right?

Here’s the skinny on the show, the deadlines and what happens next.

Candy Cigarette - Sally Mann

The Portrait: “Moments of Being“

As photographers, we look for faces and expressions that tell stories. We look for character. We look for emotion.

We look for the hook, that moment of being that creates a compelling portrait. Like a modern physiognomy, a portrait tells a story equal parts subject and photographer in a single moment.

As the curator of this show, I will be looking for portraits that are edgy and daring. I want more than the traditional head shot. I want to see work that pushes the boundaries of what is normally called a portrait. (Please note: For this show, my interests are not in photo-journalistic photographs of the homeless, the needy, or third world subjects)

Photographs by Emmet Gowin and Sally Mann (for example) show a trust and a relationship between the photographer and the subject. There is a connection that is clear to the viewer; this is what I am looking for. I will also be looking for unique styles and interesting compositions. The images might be quiet, honest, sexually charged, or pure. These portraits, color or black and white, should convey a unique and powerful moment of life.

Emmet Gowin

Best of Show: Blurb book credit to create your own monograph

Juror’s Choice: A featured portfolio in Fraction Magazine

Director’s Choice: Center’s Review LA 2011 portfolio review participant

For more information please contact the gallery.

Important Dates

Open Submission period – 1 October 2010 – 20 November 2010

Artists notified – 13 December 2010

Selected prints due to wall space gallery – 2 January 2011

wall space | Santa Barbara exhibition – 4 January – 30 January 2011

wall space | Seattle exhibition – 1 February – 26 February 2011

Rules

Entries will be accepted from the United States and Internationally.

Your entry (via mail with CD or on-line) must reach the Santa Barbara gallery by 20 November 2010.

A maximum of 5 images may be submitted

Traditional or Digital Images may be submitted

Submission fee is $35USD. If mailing entry, enclose payment. On-line entries can use google checkout or paypal to pay.

Image selections will be made and artists notified 13 December 2010.

Selected images must be delivered to the gallery framed and ready for exhibition after 13 December 2010 and before 3 January, 2011.

Framed exhibition prints must not exceed 20×24.

wall space reserves the right to edit images for poor quality printing or framing.

On-line entries must be optimized for screen view (72ppi). Maximum dimensions 765px x 595px. Maximum file size: 350KB.

Juror

David Bram, Founder and Editor Fraction Magazine, Alburquerque, NM

David Bram is a fine art photographer and the editor, founder, and curator of Fraction Magazine, an online venue dedicated to fine art photography, showcasing the work of both emerging and very established fine art photographers. Fraction Magazine is now published on a monthly basis. Fraction Magazine was founded in 2008 and is currently on it’s nineteenth issue and has shown portfolios from more than 120 photographers.

David has been reviewing portfolios at various events including Review LA, Review Santa Fe, PhotoNOLA, Atlanta Celebrates Photography and Fotofest. He was also a juror for Review Santa Fe in 2010 as well as a juror for Critical Mass in 2009 and 2010. In September 2010, David was the recipient of the Griffin Museum of Photography’s Rising Star Award.

Now that you can’t wait another minute to enter – jump onto the gallery’s website and send us your images.

If you have any additional questions – email us or give us a call at 805.637.3898

November 10, 2010

Mary Ellen Bartley

Filed under: Critical Mass — Tags: , , , — The Flat File @ 9:30 am
 

 

All Night Near the Water

The Damp Moon

Blue-Hole-Back-Home

In contrast to Ion Zupcu’s White Cubes, we have the talented Mary Ellen Bartley’s Blue Books.

I have been a fan of Mary Ellen’s work for years. She hit the trifecta for me years ago, combining books, white and architecture. Three of my favorite things. As the daughter of a writer, and a collector of books, the subject hit home for me. These precious objects that are slowly disappearing need documentation. Yet without specific regard to the books subject, the structure of these piles lend themselves to the weight, substance, and texture of these tomes. The beautiful lines and soft edges, color contrasts remind me of Rothko’s beautiful quiet, yet powerful paintings. Subtle shades and variations allow us as the viewer to engage in the images in an emotional way.

We are showcasing the Blue Books today, just recently named a finalist in the Top 50 of Critical Mass 2010. Her Paperbacks series was a finalist for the Critical Mass Top 50 in 2009.

I can’t wait for whats next.

Mary Ellen Bartley

Artist Statement/ Blue Books:

The sensation of night falling is both lovely and scary. In Blue Books, my third series using books as subject, I work in the palette and light of twilight when shapes are barely defined and the sense of space becomes unreliable, feeling very close and very deep and the same time.

As a child I had an obsessive habit where I would line things up with my eyes, titling and adjusting my head until the scene before me seemed straightened out and ordered. I also played with squinting my eyes and softening everything.  It was a calming behavior that distracted me from my highly dramatic family.

It’s a personal tic I‘ve taken to my still life work where I can use the camera to capture the alignments and relationships of objects that I set up. I am again avoiding drama by purposely excluding hints to the books contents, muting the stories they contain.

The colored planes of the books are seeped with damp blues some nearly black, like color field paintings that revel in the sensation of color. The texture of the book cloth reads like canvas stained with paint. I love the way color in a Reinhardt or Rothko painting seems to hover around the canvas. I play with camera focus to achieve that hovering effect and to evoke a sense of space up around your skin but fathomless like a lake at night.

 

November 9, 2010

Ion Zupcu

Filed under: Critical Mass — Tags: , , — The Flat File @ 9:35 am

Ion Zupcu

November 11 2009

November 11 2009

January 6 2010

January 6 2010

January 2 2009

January 2 2009

February 20 2009

February 20 2009

April 23 2009

April 23 2009

 

Ion Zupcu crafts beautiful images. I can’t stop reveling in them. His Painted Cubes are mesmerizing. Architectural, dreamlike, and having a simple yet complex structure, his work keeps me engaged, and surrounded in a modernist esthetic that I find compelling. In going through his website, so many works have this beautiful balance of light and dark, positive and negative spaces.

In his own words:

My “Painted Cubes” is a new still life series which I began in the summer of 2007. The cube is a subject that has been explored at length by a number of artists for whom I have great admiration, and the influence of this work is clearly visible in some of my images.

I stage the cubes I use in a studio under soft, natural light. I direct the variables, including the number of cubes, and in some images I reduce the cubes simply to lines.

I wish to portray the cube as a simple and direct object—a solid presence which then invites multiple exposures and perspectives. The images I create represent a personal response to this archetypal form.

Biography:

Ion Zupcu was born in 1960 in Romania, and graduated from the Professional School of Photographers in Bucharest, in 1982-1983.

He has exhibited extensively, and his work is held in numerous private and public collections around the United States and Romania. He has been published in Lens Work, UK Black & White, Fotomagazine, and others.

All images copyright by Ion Zupcu. Used with permission.

November 8, 2010

Tim Matsui

Filed under: Critical Mass — Tags: , , , , , — The Flat File @ 7:34 am

Tim Matsui

Kivalina, AK, U.S.A.

May 1, 2008 -- Kivalina, AK, U.S.A. Kivalina is suing 20 oil companies for property damage related to global warming; the ocean pack ice forms later and melts earlier, leaving the town vulnerable to erosive winter storms and endangering their traditional subsistence lifestyle.

Austin Swan

May 1, 2008 -- Kivalina, AK, U.S.A. Austin Swan discusses whale hunting weaponry and technique at his home in Kivalina, Alaska, while his adoptive son, 9 year old Justin Cooper Swan, watches TV. Kivalina is suing 20 oil companies for property damage related to global warming; the ocean pack ice forms later and melts earlier, leaving the town vulnerable to erosive winter storms and endangering their traditional subsistence lifestyle.

Whaling Camp

May 3, 2008 -- Kivalina, AK, U.S.A. Austin Swan's whaling camp, two miles out on the melting pack ice and 12 miles from the native village of Kivalina, Alaska.

Whaling Boat

May 3, 2008 -- Kivalina, AK, U.S.A. A ready whaling boat sits on the edge of the pack ice as native Inupiat wait to spot a beluga or bowhead whale some two miles out on the melting pack ice and 12 miles from the native village of Kivalina, Alaska.

Life at Whaling Camp

May 3, 2008 -- Kivalina, AK, U.S.A. Life at whaling camp involves a lot of waiting and watching from the melting pack ice some two miles from shore and 12 miles from the native village of Kivalina, Alaska.

 

Tim Matsui is a talented, dedicated, and generous of heart photojournalist. I met him many years ago while working with Blue Earth Alliance (another great group, dedicated to promoting and supporting important stories about our Earth) He was working on his own personal project, Fear. After working with Blue Earth, he founded his own non profit to help victims of violence. Today he travels the world, discussing stories that are important for all of us to see. His creativity in capturing these stories is engaging and direct. He shares with us the best of people under difficult circumstances, giving victims a voice, empowering them to no longer be victimized. He calls us all to act, to reach and to be better people by understanding the world that is happening around us.

The particular project we focused on today is one that Tim submitted to Critical Mass 2009. His website focuses on many more stories that should be told. Take a deeper look.

In his own words:

Kivalina, Alaska. The Inupiat town of 400 is suing oil companies for property damage as a result of climate change. The residents are facing imminent destruction of their town as winter pack ice forms later and melts sooner, due to climate change, leaving their highly erosive shoreline exposed to strong winter storms. However, even if the residents relocate, they are facing the loss of their subsistence culture as the climate changes, denying them of historical hunting grounds. This story was photographed on assignment for Der Spiegel Magazine.

Biography:

Tim Matsui is a multimedia journalist whose recent work focuses on human trafficking. He spent the spring of 2010 in NYC producing media for one of the world’s leading multimedia production companies, MediaStorm. He is a past Blue Earth Alliance Project Photographer and a recipient of grants from the Open Society Institute, Fund for Investigative Journalism, and King County 4Culture. Tim earned a bachelors degree in journalism, with a minor in geology, from the University of Washington. He is the founder of a 501(c)3 non profit using documentary multimedia to create dialog about the lasting effects of sexual violence. Tim co-founded the Travel and Outdoor Photographer’s Alliance and organized several state-of-the-industry panel discussions with leading photographers and editors. The World Affairs Council regularly invites him to speak with international visitors hosted by the US Department of State.

Tim is based in Seattle where he lives with his Brazilian sweetheart, Luciana; a six year-old boy skilled in the art of Lego battles and ninja moves, a princess of a cat, and a tail-less clown fish not named Nemo.

All images copyright by Tim Matsui. Used with permission.

November 7, 2010

David Zlotky

Filed under: center for fine art photography — Tags: , , , — The Flat File @ 9:00 am

David Zlotky

Secret World

Secret World

Artist Statement:

Most people take on an artificial look when they know they are being photographed. Candid images are more interesting to me because they portray people as the world sees them, ordinary and unpretentious. “Secret World” captures two French high school girls during midday break in the town of Saint-Germain-en-Laye on the outskirts of Paris. I was serving as the chaperone of middle school students touring France and couldn’t take my 4×5 view camera or the Hasselblad, so I used the camera in my iPhone. I found the iPhone to be an ideal tool for street photography because it doesn’t look at all like a camera. My approach is to shoot with it at chest level as I walk by my subjects. I made no effort to aim the camera. I often don’t even look directly at the people I’m photographing; as a consequence, the compositions have an accidental quality that I enjoy. There’s an edgy look that they wouldn’t have if I thought while shooting. Many of these images are not useful but some are gems. “Secret World” is one of my favorites.

November 6, 2010

Paul Whitfield

Filed under: center for fine art photography — Tags: , , , — The Flat File @ 9:00 am
Temple Of Heaven

Temple Of Heaven

Ming Tombs

Ming Tombs

Artist Statement:

As a fine art photographer, I work to create images that go beyond documentation of places and people frozen in a specific moment of time. My images contain an element of ambiguity, either in time or subject. This ambiguity provides the viewers the opportunity to create a storyline for the image derived from their own life experiences or imaginations. Like the illustration on the chapter page of a young reader’s novel, the print gives a hint about the story that follows. In my work the image is the starting point but the viewer writes the narrative.

A photograph that contains ambiguity of time stimulates the viewer’s imagination. Ambiguity of time can be achieved by the careful selections of subject matter, the camera used, and the printing process. I avoid contemporary automobiles, details of clothing or other familiar subjects that will fix the exposure to a narrow time frame. Landscapes and images of historical architecture are, therefore, common subject matter.

The photographic characteristics of a pinhole camera contribute to the uncertainty of time that the image produces. Pinhole cameras have a “soft focus”, enhancing ambiguity for the time of image capture, quite different from the super-sharp images produced by cameras with high quality lens. Placing the image in time also becomes more difficult because of the monochromatic printing processes used. I often use warm-toned photographic paper to produce black and white images with a slight brownish tint suggesting an aged appearance. Prints using historic hand-applied light sensitive solutions on art paper can also make recent prints seem older. I frequently choose brown-toned prints such as Vandyke and Kallitypes to enhance the aged look of the image.

“Ming Tombs” and “Temple of Heaven” utilize both the pinhole camera and the Vandyke printing process. The subject matter of these prints are centuries old, the characteristics of the pinhole image, and the print qualities of the Vandyke process contribute to the uncertainty of time that I strive to achieve in my images.

I have studied photography techniques and image composition for over twenty years at the Museum School of the Arkansas Arts Center and the Bemis School of the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center and have taught workshops on building pinhole cameras and photography techniques. Also, I have studied composition through years of viewing photography, drawings and paintings in galleries and museums where I’ve lived and traveled. Being married to a visual artist has made this course of study easier. Through this life-long course in composition and techniques I strive to produce images with tight composition and structure but with a degree of ambiguity and freedom for the viewer.

Low Tech showed at the Center for Fine Art Photography during the month of October.

November 5, 2010

Sean Stewart

Filed under: center for fine art photography — Tags: , , — The Flat File @ 9:00 am
Shock Therapy

Shock Therapy

Evacuated Space No. 211

Evacuated Space No. 211

Artist Statement:

Since he was a child, Sean always had a keen interest in all forms of still media. At 6 he began taking apart the ‘hand-me-down’ cameras he were given to him to see if he could ‘change’ the way they worked. Unfortunately at this young age, he lacked the knowledge of film and physics to get the camera to do what he envisioned. Many rolls got exposed to light.

He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in 1993 with a special interest in physics and mathematics. He subsequently obtained a post-graduate degree in the health sciences field in 1997.

In 2006, he began diverting more of his time to art as a result of a life altering experience. On November 14, 2005, he was diagnosed with avascular necrosis of both hips, an unfortunate side effect from a prescription medication. Unable to walk significant distances for a period of four years, Sean used this period of confinement to take a different direction, expressing his thoughts through photography and painting. Five surgeries later, he is beginning to walk unaided with a different view of the world.

Sean applies his mathematical background to his photography and paintings to create ‘organized randomness’ in his work.

Today, he is still taking apart old cameras to try to realize the vision of that 6 year old boy. Currently he is exploring x-ray photography using expired medical film and intensifying screens. All of his digital work can be printed on a variety of substrates.

With “Shock Therapy” and “Evacuated Space” I wanted to stimulate thought and discussion on how we view objects. I feel there is much more to something than just the visible exterior surface we are accustomed to. Photon and x-ray exposure helps bring the viewer into a different world inside these fascinating shapes and forms.

Low Tech showed at the Center for Fine Art Photography during the month of October.

November 4, 2010

S. Gayle Stevens

Filed under: center for fine art photography — Tags: , , — The Flat File @ 9:00 am

S. Gayle Stevens

Pool, West Beach and Barkley

Pool, West Beach and Barkley

Pool Diving Boart Everitt

Pool Diving Boart Everitt

Artist Statement:

Pass: (v) to go away, die, to go from one state to another.

August 29, 2005 at 10:00 am Pass Christian, a community on the Mississippi gulf coast, lost all but 500 of its 8000 homes when Katrina’s storm surge topped the high water mark at over 30 feet and drove destruction more than half a mile inland. A once thriving community lay in ruins. Gone are homes, possessions, and the community. Many residents will not return but their memories are still in the essence of this place. Swimming pools are filled with grasses, blackberry vines creep over bleached foundations and peeling linoleum; nature, like a shroud, slowly covers Pass.

Five years later, I shot Pass over the course of four seasons. I created my images with a medium format pinhole camera using wet plate collodion plates, a process from the time of the city’s founding. Wet plate captures mystery the way dreams reveal what daylight hides. I recorded the ruins that were once Pass.

Wet plate is hands-on and I am a hands-on person. It is slow and fast, you flow the plate and sensitize, then you have about 10-15 minutes to get your exposure before the plate starts to dry. You develop, fix and wash. After you dry it over an oil lamp you varnish it with gum sandarac and lavender oil and everything smells like lavender. Happy accidents occur on the plates, mystery, sense of chance, I like the flaws. It is like spirits are coming out and speaking through me. When I flow a plate, there is a dark placid pool that draws me in and takes over, I like that place.

Low Tech showed at the Center for Fine Art Photography during the month of October.

November 3, 2010

Rebecca Sexton Larson

Filed under: center for fine art photography — Tags: , , — The Flat File @ 9:00 am

Rebecca Sexton Larson

Veil

Veil

Plates

Plates

Fork

Fork

Artist Statement:

“Life—how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.”
– V.S. Pritchett

This series of images is from my current body of work entitled Elsewhere. The main theme running through this series is memory, altered spaces and a sense of another locale. I approached this project as I had done for years with the ultimate goal of printing large black and white images that would be heavily painted and sewn together. As both a painter and a photographer my interest lies mutually in the image and the manner in which it was made.

Unexpectedly, I experienced a year of personal challenges that made me step back and rethink how I was approaching my image making. I have always been a fastidious planner and technician when it comes to laying out pieces and painting images. Now I reached out for a more spontaneous and intimate way of working and an ethereal image. A workshop with Dan Estabrook inspired me to shift gears and experiment with salt prints. Exploring a 19th century method of printing allows me to continue to create unique works on paper without relying on the limitations of more modern photographic paper and at the same time offers me the freedom to create, explore and rediscover the roots of an early image making technique—a pure process.

Salt printing is one of the oldest alternative photographic processes. A salt print is made using a paper substrate that is coated with first a salt solution and dried, and later coated again with a silver nitrate solution just before exposure. The sensitized paper is placed in direct contact with a negative using a contact-printing frame and exposed to daylight.

The Elsewhere body of work is 3.5 x 3.5 inches printed on 140 lb. Lana Aquarelle paper. All images are printed and signed, titled and date on verso by the artist. Editions of 10.

Low Tech showed at the Center for Fine Art Photography during the month of October.

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