Contact: Cecilia Whittaker-Doe, Don Doe Opening Reception Oct. 19th, 6-9pm
Oct. 19 – Nov.11, 2018
SRO GALLERY is pleased to present a group exhibit: Photo-A-GoGo, curated by artist D.Dominick Lombardi.
Photo-A-GoGo presents art that has photography as an element, whether it is predominant or used as a minor accent, to show how the creative process now parallels or responds to the ubiquitous social digital/exchange mentality. We have the MIME, Instagram, Snapchat, all the ways we express or project our ideas or self-image.
So the photograph, instead of being “worth a thousand words” is now as common as a mosquito in July. However, that does not mean that art or the intention behind it or the imagery utilized is, in the end, benign.
Don Doe combines portions of magazine photo-pages to distort representation and fracture meaning.
Liz Guarracino creates unexpected abstractions by photographing ice at close range. We see something familiar in a curious context-less presentation. Using abrupt movements and a Polaroid camera, Jan Houllevigue creates a haunting image of a cold and calculated world submerged in a thick unyielding atmosphere where feral focus and lingering light breeds unsteadiness in the viewers sense of being grounded. Moses Hoskins creates Books of Debris that turn art making into urban archeology. Janusz Kawa’s photographs can be found in a variety of places including a cover of the New York Times magazine section. For this exhibition, Kawa offers one of his works from the Time and Light series where blurred movements dull and disperse the fading forms. In D.Dominick Lombardi’s new series collectively titled Cross Contamination, he begins with old LP album jackets that feature a photograph. After all or most of the original lettering is painted out he attaches hand made ‘stickers’ of variously drawn sizes and styles to suggest parallels between two distinct types of popular culture. Creighton Michael has had a recent partial loss of his sight due to a surgical error that almost took his life. In response to his circumstance, Michael has initiated the Blindsight series utilizing a number of media and techniques including photography as he explores the space between sight and perception. Claire Seidl turns the night into near non- representation as harsh hovering light overruns the composition, invading the deepest darks. Jill Thayer’s two-dimensional work creates a medley of movements that begin with the photographed details of her installations. Adjustments are made in a variety of ways with digital media programs where colors are enhanced, forms are stretched and comparisons are made. Roman Turovsky presents a visceral view of Hell’s Kitchen in New York City. To his photograph, Turovsky applies digital filters giving this print its ‘vintage’ appearance. Patrick Winfield mixes several instant print pictures in a grid format in the creation of a ‘portrait’ that suggests multiple views. What will most intrigue the viewer is the beautifully successful arrangement of crimson reds, phthalocyanine greens and off whites in this most
alluring work. Tansy Xiao gives us a sense of the theatric, as a pair of characters strut across the picture plane in Keys (2016). In this work we see a mix of photographs that become both a minor and pivotal element, as this mix is comprised of a collage of images of keys garnered from the internet.
The artists in this exhibition are quite varied in style and background – they all use machines, mechanism or minutiae that are accessible to most – and they all bring something new and fresh to the use and application of the photograph.