Home

About the Gallery

Current Show

Show Schedule

Gallery Photographers
    Partner
    Artists-in-Residence
    Guest Online

Exhibition Opportunities

Links

Image City Feature Articles
Gary's Photographic Tips
My Image....

Newsletter Archive

 

 

If you are unable to visit our gallery and would like to purchase photographs from this preview or others in the gallery, please contact the gallery and call 585-271-2540.

 

Peter's Picks of the Month

December 2-23,2009

Holiday Show

by Gallery Partners, Artists-in-Residence,
and Guest Photographers

Peter Marr picked his favorite photos of the show
by the featured and guest photographers and also describes the strength of the images he has chosen.


 
                                                                                                                                                                            

All images copyright by the individual photographers

Ralph Steiner was described as someone who “Thinks with his eyes”. Unfortunately, we are so used to moving fast that we often miss yes – saying things.  Happily, this impressive exhibition by all of the Gallery Partners, Artists in Residence and distinguished Guest Artists, have combined their considerable photographic talents, to give us a Holiday Show, par excellence. This eclectic exhibition has a sustained quality and incredible versatility, that certainly makes it the finest Holiday Show that the Gallery has ever put together.

Burnished Metal #12 by Steve Levinson

Burnished Metal #12
by Steve Levinson

Steve states how he is intrigued by creating fascinating, colorful images of light reflected off of various surfaces. Certainly his superb, thought-provoking images in this exhibition bear out this creative and intuitive approach. Meaningful art is mind changing, and these beautiful prints are great examples of how Steve has liberated his vision and increased his photographic artistry. My other favorite print is “Burnished Metal Arrow” which has a wonderful warm color quality, and is full of flowing lines and intricate detail, conjuring up numerous scenarios that excite the visual cortex which I would like to reflect on at a later date.  In Burnished Metal #12, we have a dynamic vertical print of boundless visual richness, interspersed with powerful etchings and vibrations.In seeing, we use all of our senses, our intellect and our emotions, so we must encounter the subject matter with our whole being, both in photographing the subject, and in viewing the end-result.  Here, I envisaged the warm, sumptuous, mahogany-colored bark of a massive tree, as a bird of paradise swings through, its gorgeous long tail curving effortlessly downward.The colors and shapes may not be correct, but it is a situation where imagination can disagree with reality, so we can really see a beautiful tropical bird in an idyllic setting.The striations and etchings on the right-hand side of the print may not be congruous with this conception, but the overall effect is a dynamic, entrancing image, superbly seen and captured by a consummate artist.
Playground Colors by Bruce Elling

 

Playground Colors
by Bruce Elling  
                                                     
                                                        

Photography is an art of observation, and it is everything to do with the way that you see the subject. One of my favorite Taoist quotations is, “The eye that is penetrating sees clearly, and the understanding that is penetrating has virtue”. Bruce has that vision, distinctly shown in his excellent exhibition of prints that show a creative use of color, line, shape, form, value and negative space. As Beaumont Newhall has so eloquently stated, “We are not interested in the unusual, but in the usual seen unusually”. Beautifully illustrative of this quotation is the stellar triptych Playground Colors. In the left hand image, the bright red “sail” is splendidly balanced in shape and color by its surroundings, whilst a mysterious cyan-green stack thrusts out of the unknown, blowing needed air to inflate the sail. The center dynamic yellow form with the delightful blue “porthole”, has a slashing dark triangle of perhaps a stormy sky that balances the whole design so well. The complementary blue and yellow hues are very striking, whilst the dark triangle holds our eyes in the frame, so that we can continue to peer through the porthole into the world beyond. In direct contrast, the third print shows us the sensuous curves of the sail as it thrusts upward into the sky. The vertical mast and a more muted range of colors add a degree of mystery, particularly with the black curved sail at the right hand side. I have put a maritime slant to these lovely images, because that is how I envisaged them. Each image has great artistic presence, and most people would be amazed that they were captured in a playground. Certainly, they are superb examples of the great vision and artistic talents of the author.

 


Giraffes by Bev Cronkite

 

Giraffes
by Bev Cronkite

As I have quoted before, Emerson so eloquently stated, “Nature is so pervaded with human life, that there is something of humanity in all and in every particular”. This is beautifully illustrated in “Giraffes”, which is one of the finest, meaningful double images that I have ever seen. The superimposition of the three giraffes with the astoundingly similar petroglyphs is simply amazing and awe-inspiring. Not only are the animal forms strikingly comparable, the dominant reddish-brown color of the foreground ruminants matches the red sandstone rock almost perfectly. One certainly has to be astounded at the rock drawings as to how well the artist has captured the very essence of the tallest quadruped. Interestingly, the other drawings or carvings, probably of horses, almost all face the other direction from the giraffes, including one in particular placed between the first two giraffes. This certainly gives the observer a chance to think and conjecture about the overall composition of this particular petroglyph assembly. Certainly, the ancient people who drew these fascinating images were artists in their own right, and there is probably a tantalizing story behind the way the animals were arranged and portrayed. It is very apparent why this print is a great image, and it is visually astounding that although the three giraffes in the foreground stand out for their clarity and impact, one is always very aware of the relationship with their counterparts on the sandstone wall. One’s eyes constantly go back and forth between the two separate images, further establishing the fact that we are looking at two great artists, both with great vision and artistic talent, one in the distant past whose name will forever be unknown, and the other, the author of this sublime print.  

Code = SFBRED by Scott Matyjaszek  

 

Code=SFYCD and Code=SFBRED
by Scott Matyjaszek

Scott’s unique, superb collages are an utter joy to look at, to wander in and out of, to explore both visually and mentally, and of course to admire and to fully appreciate the artistic skills of the author. These collages are impressive examples of breaking through stereotyped perception, and I would like to comment on all of them, for I enjoy them so much, but I have to settle on the above two, for they are both similar in many ways, yet subtly, quite different. When I first studied “SFYCD”, I was struck by the bold use of yellow and cyan, calling our attention to the strong vertical segments, which are suddenly, and dynamically broken up by the powerful horizontal cyan element. Before one can explore and wander deeper into the assembly, we are shocked to find that our way is closed off by the imposing horizontal red wooden component, and by a hasp, secured with a smaller red piece of wood. Both these barriers do not seem to be physically difficult to remove, so that we could gain easy access, but do we want to remove them? For one, they are an interrelated part of the collage, both design and color-wise. We are initially barred from entering farther, so that it gives us ample time to admire the striking artistic design and the dynamic interplay of colors, before going on to explore the mystery and fascination of what may be beyond the “closed doors”. Contrast this with the equally enthralling adjoining collage “SFBRED”, where the striking red elements dominate the scene. What is truly significant, is that the door is not barred, but left deliberately ajar, but only slightly. This gives us less time to admire the overall image, so that our senses and cerebral processes can explore any mystery that we can dream up, of what we cannot visually see. Paradoxically, and unfortunately, the uninformed could say “I am not looking for anything, I’m just looking”. Hopefully, no one who has the chance to see and enjoy these superb collages will think like that.

 

   
 
Image City Photography Gallery  ♦   722 University Avenue  ♦    Rochester, NY 14607 ♦ 585.271.2540
In the heart of ARTWalk in the Neighborhood of the Arts