Thursday, February 9, 2012

The Architecture of Space

GREG STIMAC
In Our Own Words

©Greg Stimac, courtesy Andrew Rafacz Gallery

Series: Untitled
Title: Untitled (Portland to Sacramento), 2009
Size: 24"x30"
Medium: Pigment Print
Edition:  5
Price: $2,200

"From a distance, Greg Stimac's photographs appear to be abstract, almost like celestial constellations. On closer inspection, however, we find this night sky of stars is in fact a dust cloud of insects and grit. These wonderfully detailed photographs come about by the artist affixing a sheet of plexi to the grate of his car for the duration of a journey. At journey's end, Stimac scans the plexi, recording its inhabitants and prints the resulting image. The images represent a familiar sight and experience that accompanies any road-trip and, importantly, a tangible record of time and space."

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Architecture of Space

ANDREA LAND
In Her Own Words

©Andrea Land

Series: In My Room
Title: Stella, 2007
Size: 27"x22"
Medium: C-Type
Edition:
10
Price: $700

"My portraits of children contain various layers of information relating to the artist, the subject and a mutual exchange between the two. The work seeks to explore the psyche of complex individuals. Each young girl, while physically existing in the natural world, also thrives in another realm, an insular dream state, with her gaze turned inward.

The photographs exist as both fictional and autobiographical creations (growing up in an all female, Midwest household). Relating to the temporary situation of childhood, I am fascinated by young individuals’ imagination and intensity of experience. My curiosity about childhood, as a state of limbo and a game of illusion, creates additional layers with which to contemplate.

Visually exploring the girls’ stances and embellished environments, the audience enters into a private world of vulnerability, isolation, imagination and memory. A delicate balance exists between the real and the imagined, the beautiful and the grotesque."

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The Architecture of Space

JAMES POMERANTZ
In His Own Words

 ©James Pomerantz, courtesy INSTITUTE for Artists Management

Series: Remote Control
Title: Remote Control #1, 2009
Size: 22"x44"
Medium: Pigment Print
Edition: 10
Price: $2,000


"These images are composites comprised of multiple screen grabs taken from an anonymous webcam that I accessed via the Internet, between Fall 2009 and Spring 2010. The camera gives me the ability to pan and tilt from my computer at home. The individual images are then stitched together. There is a liberation that comes from being ignorant about the location of the camera. As a documentary photographer, I am normally expected to be able to share some insightful information about what my images depict. The webcam releases me from the accountability and responsibility to Witness that comes with being a photojournalist."

Monday, February 6, 2012

The Architecture of Space

JUSTINE REYES
In Her Own Words

©Justine Reyes

Series: Vanitas
Title: Still Life with Banana, Purse & Change, 2010
Size: 16" x 20"
Medium: C-Type
Edition:
10
Price: $1,500

“Taking inspiration from the Dutch Vanitas paintings, these photographs incorporate personal artifacts within the traditional construct of still life. Pairing objects that belonged to my grandmother with my own possessions speaks to the concept of memory, familial legacy and the passage of time. The incorporation of modern elements, as well as the use of photography itself add an additional layer of nostalgia and irony when viewed within the historical framework of Vanitas painting. Both the decomposition of the natural and the break down of the man-made objects, reference the physical body, life’s impermanence and the inevitability of death.”

Sunday, February 5, 2012

The Architecture of Space

SEBASTIAN LEMM
In His Own Words

©Sebastian Lemm, courtesy Michael Mazzeo Gallery

Series: Subtractions
Title: Subtraction No. 2, 2006
Size: 60"x48"
Medium: C-Type
Edition:  3
Price: $6,000

“My work is informed by nature in a broad sense. Visually, I am fascinated by seemingly random structures in the natural environment and I see parallels to patterns or events in my own life. Taking a more wide-ranging definition of nature, I am attracted to subtleties of human interactions, the subconscious and physics’ theories about dimensions that are outside of our perception. Although these ideas may not be inherently obvious in my images, they do have a significant impact on my artistic process.”

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Architecture of Space

MONIKA SZILADI
In Her Own Words

©Monika Sziladi

Series: Wide Receivers
Title: Pledge, 2010
Size: 20"x36"
Medium: Pigment Print
Edition:  5
Price: Contact gallery for pricing

“In Wide Receivers I am interested in how society and human behavior are becoming simultaneously tribalized and atomized amidst the ever increasing noise of mass (over)communication, digital media, and self-broadcasting. My photographs are digital collages constructed from images that I shoot at public relations, networking events and at meet-ups of subcultures that were formed and (or) are operating as a result of social connectivity on the Internet. 

Compositing and cropping the source photos heightens the intragroup dynamics and throws off the viewer's ability to find a primary point-of-view, thus generating an underlying disruption: the participants, while appearing connected within a social network, also appear atomized in a contrived pose or uncertain gesture.”

Friday, February 3, 2012

The Architecture of Space

MATTHEW BAUM
In His Own Words

 ©Matthew Baum

Series: Eighteen
Title: Untitled (New York City), 2007
Size: 22"x30"
Medium: Pigment Print
Edition:
7+2AP's
Price: $2,000 

"These images have evolved out of a love of wandering around with my camera and spontaneously making pictures in the tradition of street photography. I engage this enduring methodology looking both forward and back, embracing the knowledge that I am working in the 21st century, unbound by any rules of practice.

The title EIGHTEEN is derived from the number of pictures in the portfolio as well as the Hebrew word chai, which translates numerically as '18'  and linguistically as 'living' or 'alive'."

Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Architecture of Space

BENJAMIN LOWY
In His Own Words

 ©Benjamin Lowy, courtesy Reportage by Getty Images 

Series: Iraq | Perspectives
Title: Untitled, 2005—2008
Size: 12"x18"
Medium: C-Type
Edition:
20
Price: $1,250

“Confronted by a level of violence so high that walking on the streets to photograph was tantamount to suicidal behavior, I found myself confined to working with American soldiers, spending most of my time going on various missions in armored Humvees. My only view of Iraq was through inches-thick bulletproof windows. This vantage on the Iraqi street is one rarely seen by the American public, but it is the most common point of view for U.S. soldiers. 

These images are not intimate—they reflect a distant and detached perspective on a country that is so empty, so desolate, on a situation so dire. The windows represent a barrier that impedes dialogue. The pictures illustrate a fragment of Iraqi daily life taken by a transient passenger in a Humvee; yet they are a window to a world where work, play, tension, grief, survival, and everything in between is as familiar as the events of our own lives.” 

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

The Architecture of Space

S. BILLIE MANDLE
In Her Own Words

©S. Billie Mandle

Series: San Mateo
Title: San Mateo 3, 2010
Size: 32"x40"
Medium: C-Type
Edition:  6
Price: $1,800

"My work explores photography as both an attentive study of reality and a way of pointing beyond it. Beginning with the premise that the world withholds as much as it reveals, I look at the intersection of people, their environments and beliefs, focusing on the places where lives and ideologies coalesce.
In this series, San Mateo, I photograph parking garages in my hometown, digitally removing the parking lines and signs to create abstract spaces. Garages organize parked vehicles, creating orderly, purposeful environments; to function, they assume that people obey rules and follow directions. My father is a civil engineer who designs parking garages; by removing the parking lines I undo my father’s work, creating purposeless structures. 

I am interested in the way the spaces, without function, become unfamiliar and chaotic. With these images I investigate the relationship between environment and perception, the material and the ethereal, art and engineering.  For me, photography offers the challenge of trying to convey the complexity of reality by describing the surface of the world."