In December, the month of giving, we are highlighting our talented gallery artists who give us the gift of their work. It is their insights that inspire us, help us grow, challenge us and surround us with inspiration.

In the dark of winter, Ryuijie’s Color Ice Forms are a bright vibrant burst of color and light. Taking spring flowers and stopping time, Ryuijie has managed to mix line, form and texture to brilliant effect. Crafted by freezing the blooms, then illuminating them with light, these painterly images lift my spirits, reminding me that spring isn’t far away, especially in these days where daylight is so scarce.

Ryuijie’s stunning prints are available in three sizes – 20×24 start at $1,250, 22×30 are $1,800. Both of these sizes are an edition of 15. Prints in a size of 30×40 and with an edition of 5 are also available for $2,500. Please contact the gallery for details. To see more of Ryuijie’s images from this series, check out the gallery’s website, or the work is available on Amazon Fine Art.

About Ryuijie’s Ice Forms –

Originally conceived for the darkroom, the subject matter is botanicals frozen in blocks of ice, photographed in black and white with a large format camera. Having recently expanded the series to include the color versions, the photographs were captured digitally, printed as an archival pigment print. The ice is as important as the flowers it encases, providing an element of the unexpected and unpredictable. This element can be likened to the Japanese principle of wabi sabi—beauty in nature in all its imperfections.

About Ryuijie –

Ryuijie was born in Otaru, Japan in 1950. As a young child he moved with his family to the US and subsequently lived in many places, from Hawaii to New Hampshire, and again in Japan, until his father retired from the military. Throughout his childhood, Ryuijie showed a serious inclination to the arts. This interest began to materialize during his own military service.

While stationed in Guam, Ryuijie learned underwater photography while pursuing his long time interest in scuba diving. After his tour, he came back to the Monterey Peninsula where he attended college and began a successful career in lithography. It was in Monterey that an exhibit of Jerry Uelsmann’s photographs inspired him and propelled him into the practice of fine art black and white photography.

Ryuijie has steadfastly pursued his own photographic vision for over thirty years, and has acquired a reputation for his exquisite platinum/palladium prints, in addition to his traditional black and white work. An exceptionally prolific artist, Ryuijie’s career has been highlighted by a multitude of exhibitions. His work has appeared in View Camera, Photovision, Camera and Darkroom, Black&White, Lenswork, and Focus magazines. He has published three books, Ryuijie: Photographs, Time and Place, and Fragments of Time, along with smaller catalogs.

His first portfolio, Ryuijie: Ten Photographs, was published in 1990 and his second portfolio, Ryuijie: Portfolio Two Platinum/Palladium, was published in 2002. Ryuijie’s currently work involves large split toned black and white prints of frozen botanicals, and his third portfolio, P2, a selection of square photographs taken with a 2 1/4 Rollei camera. In October 2005 Ryuijie returned to his first love the landscape, and the abstraction, creating panoramic visions of the natural world. Works by Ryuijie can be
found in private and public collections word wide including the Monterey Museum of Art, the Getty in Los Angeles, and the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson Arizona.