I have added several new images to my ongoing series, "Utopia" and I am working on more! I will be exhibiting this work at VERVE Gallery in Santa Fe in November, 2014, The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge, NY in October, 2014, and at Tilt Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ in 2015.
Utopia was first described in the Plato's Socratic dialogue, The Republic, where Plato shared the idea that if citizens learned the wisdom to eliminate poverty, they could become rulers. In this society, there would be few laws and wars, ultimately leading to a peaceful society.
The notion of Utopia arose again in the 16th century, with Sir Thomas More's book Utopia which proposed an ideal society in the creation of the said name. The actual definition of Utopia has been confused over time between the Greek definition which means "no place" and the homophonic prefix meaning "good place.” The marriage of these two definitions assumes that the definition for Utopia is an idyllic place that does not exist.
In this series, I have constructed imaginary landscapes, with the intention to create a physical landscape of which does exist, if only in the paper-imaged form. They are my response to the philosophical question of whether a perfect place can exist, bringing together life's dualities into a perfect union of beauty.
The albumen process involves simple egg whites as the base on the paper for light sensitive silver nitrate. Albumen, as a medium, helps to convince the viewer that these landscapes do exist, as our societal association with the 19th Century albumen prints were deemed true renditions of the time and place in which they were taken.
Images are tiered in price by edition number, approximately 6 x 8”, matted 16 x 20”
Edition of 9 with 3 AP. Prints are signed, dated, editioned, and titled on print recto.
Each print is a unique image, no two are ever identical.
I will be teaching an Traditional Albumen Workshop at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops in July, 2014. It will be a two-day workshop on the weekend of July 5 & 6, 2014.
In this intensive, hands-on introduction to the medium, I will discuss the history and process of albumen printing and demonstrate how to make albumen with raw egg whites, as well as how to coat paper with albumen, sensitize paper with silver nitrate, and print and tone with selenium. We also explore troubleshooting in regards to paper, negatives, and chemical issues.
I'm excited to have my work be a part of The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge, New York, an area not far from my hometown where I grew up in CT. The gallery is located in Northern Westchester's Hudson River Valley on the border of Stamford and New Canaan, Connecticut. Gallery Director Susan Grissom curates each exhibit from work chosen from the artists studio. Gallery inventory consists of painting, printmaking, fine art photography, mixed media and sculpture.