Currently on Display is our on-going weekly feature investigating the individual works that are included in the show currently on display at photo-eye Gallery. These artist features include the images selected for this exhibition as well as the artists' thoughts and inspirations behind the individual image or images.
The featured images this week are:
Tom Chambers’ Prom Gown #3 from his
Rites of Passage series and
Blue Fox from his
Entropic Kingdom series, and
Laurie Tümer’s Watersheds and
Graffiti Artist Against Vandalism from her
Oil Exploration: Not in My Backyard series.
Tom Chambers
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| Prom Gown #3 (2005) by Tom Chambers |
"As my daughter entered adolescence I was dumbstruck by her sudden abandonment of the authenticity characterizing a carefree childhood and the mysteriously forced adoption of artificialities so common in adulthood. In
Prom Gown #3 I portray that painful transition into adolescence. The young girl lies sacrificially in her elegant prom gown set in contrast with the unspoiled natural grandeur of the wild West. This photomontage was created from several different individual images taken in Wyoming and Virginia."
-Tom Chambers
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| Blue Fox (2009) by Tom Chambers |
"
Blue Fox was inspired by painter Andrew Wyeth who expressed a strong emotional connection to the earth through the use of texture and color in his paintings. Similar to Andrew Wyeth, I grew up in Southeastern Pennsylvania and share a love for the land. In my image the dogs bound across the landscape, just like those on an equestrian fox hunt, while the young lass adorned in a blue dress protects herself from all that might be harmful. Both the child and the animals share a vulnerability in a disturbed ecosystem.
Blue Fox was created from various elements photographed in rural Virginia."
-Tom Chambers
See more images from Tom Chambers
here.
Laurie Tümer
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| Watersheds by Laurie Tümer |
Laurie Tümer’s series Oil Exploration: Not in My Backyard was made for the
Galisteo Basin Photography Project, which aimed to raise awareness about oil drilling issues facing New Mexico in 2008. photo-eye Gallery exhibited this project in 2009, in addition to designing a limited-edition portfolio of works from this exhibit, one of which is in the collection at the
Palace of the Governors with Governor Richardson’s signature.
To keep alive the warrior spirit found in the rock art images of warriors in Galisteo, Tümer was inspired to merge her interests in rock art and graffiti. She became an honorary member of a graffiti crew educating young people about oil and gas issues.
Watersheds was made in late 2008; it shows a Google Earth map of the Galisteo watershed on her garden wall and the watershed markers of the economic downturn month by month during her participation in the project. This piece was completed the day Barack Obama was elected president. These coalesced with another watershed: an announcement that because of Galisteo community organizers, New Mexico now leads the nation in the strictest oil and gas regulations.
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| Graffiti Artist Against Vandalism by Laurie Tümer |
Graffiti Artist Against Vandalism shows one of the billboards Tümer constructed in her backyard for the project. This piece is included in Robert Hirsch’s new 5th edition of
Exploring Color Photography. Tümer currently teaches the first online photography and art history courses at Santa Fe Community College: Camera Use & The Art of Seeing and The History of Graffiti: From Glyph to Graff.
See more images by Laurie Tümer
here.
Please contact me if you would like additional information or would like to receive email updates about Tom Chambers or Laurie Tümer
Anne Kelly, Associate Director photo-eye Gallery
*Next week's featured artists will be
Hiroshi Watanabe,
Michael Levin and
Julie Blackmon.
If you missed PART ONE of Currently on Display you can read it
here.
