Michael Kenna : Photography

“I feel that my work would be much closer to haiku poetry than full-length prose. I don’t need to describe everything that’s going on. I like to just suggest one or two elements and use those elements as catalysts for my own imagination, and hopefully for the viewers imagination.” Michael Kenna

Lace Factories, Study 21
Calais, France,
sepia toned gelatin silver print
1998

Lace Factories, Study 29
Calais, France
sepia toned silver gelatin print
1998

Lace Factories, Study 8
Calais, France
sepia toned gelatin silver print
1998

Twelve Hours Over Sea of Okhotsk
Wakkanai, Hokkaido
Japan
2004

Winter Seascape
Wakkanai, Hokkaido
Japan
2004

Fish Drying Racks
Wakkanai, Hokkaido
Japan
2004

“I prefer the power of suggestion over description. Photography, for me, is not about copying the world. I’m not really interested in making an accurate copy of what I see out there. I think one of photography’s strongest elements is its ability to record a part of the world, but also to integrate with the individual photographer’s aesthetic sense. The combined result is an interpretation – and the interpretation, I think, is what is interesting – when the subject goes through the filter of an individual human mind and emerges in a changed state – not the duplication or the recording of something.” [Extract : Interview with Michael Kenna : Lenswork October 2003]

Hokkaido : Video

Half-Light : Video

Michael Kenna : Website

Michael Kenna : Wirtz Gallery

Gordon Moore : Paintings

Untitled
Latex, ink, pumice on canvas
2007

Untitled (Theater)
Latex, ink, pumice on canvas
2007

Down/Up
Latex, ink, pumice on canvas
2007

Untitled (One in the Hand)
Latex, ink, pumice on canvas
2007

The Broken Table
Acrylic, ink, graphite on paper
2007

Scroll
Latex, ink, pumice on canvas
2007

Moore creates compelling abstract canvases that utilize latex paint combined with finely ground pumice to reveal variations on a common theme: restless, branch-like linear forms that meander, interact and penetrate the rectangular segments of a reduced background. These distinctively defined areas contain variable arrangements of lush and nuanced brushwork, each with a limited palette—often a muted green or grey, but occasionally a graphically bold expanse of black. Moore makes subtle reference to forms from the urban environments he is inspired by, such as construction fencing and iron rebar, although any suggestion of actual representational form is purely a chance occurrence.

The canvases are essentially about drawing. Expressive linear forms are wielded throughout with delicately rendered lines and graphically bold passages of varying thickness appearing both on the surface and buried beneath the rectangular expanses. Shadow forms and ghost images emerge to tangle with gradations of color on the irregular grids. Moore’s varied line chaotically bends, loops, and intersects as it moves through this armature, creating essential structure within illusory space.

[Extract : Stephen Wirtz Gallery]

Gordon Moore : Betty Cuningham Gallery

Rick Arnitz : Paintings

Vibes
oil enamel on canvas
54 x 42″
2004

Check Out
oil enamel on canvas
44 x 30″
2003

Obit
oil enamel on wood
27 1/2 x 19 1/2″
2001

Grace Notes
oil enamel on wood
82 x 48″
2003

Untitled
oil enamel on canvas
30 x 30″
2002-2003

Arnitz uses a roller, rather than a paintbrush, as his tool to cover his canvases. Whether vertical or horizontal, the width of his bands is determined by the size of roller he uses. Appearing abstract upon first glance, representational possibilities materialize between the undulating marks and hues. Arnitz draws upon widely ranging ideas about space, color and scale, as well as painting itself.

The tools and improvisational yet repetitive nature of Arnitz’s work creates an abstract and eye-dazzling effect, and the mechanics of the roller he employs produces his signature painting style. Arnitz endeavors to “achieve a sense of artistic authenticity by transparently illusional means,” using his unconventional methods and imposed structure to imbue the non-objective paintings with a sense of weight and materiality. The paintings can achieve a palpable physicality that directly engages the viewer. Deadpan titles of the works are suggestive of subjects that Arnitz responds to with an acerbic but emotionally credible tone. [Extract : Stephen Wirtz Gallery]

Rick Arnitz : Website

Kjell Varvin : Temporary Installations

Frequent manipulations of insignificant objects in a naked corner of my studio for digital documentation
and also for publication on the Internet as temporary installations in the context of art. Kjell Varvin

Kjell Varvin : Varvinart

Kjell Varvin : Installart

Raymond Saunders : Artist

Drawing
mixed media, collage on board
50 x 48″
2000

Pittsburgh Series
mixed media on board
48 x 48 inches
2007

Untitled Painting
mixed media on board
48 x 48 inches
2005

Untitled Painting
mixed media on board
48 x 48 inches
2005

Pittsburgh Series
mixed media on board
48 x 48 inches
2007

Untitled : Beauty As Empathy
mixed media on wood
48 x 48 inches
2009-2010

Raymond Saunders’ signature assemblages are masterfully constructed and have a fresh and spontaneous quality that juxtaposes words and images from world culture with his personal artistic interests and preoccupations. Saunders’ keen sense of composition, form, and texture is balanced by his erudite use of color. His surfaces are spattered with expressionistic swaths of paint, richly colored, with delicately drawn figures, or inscribed with chalked words, names, and numbers. Saunders often uses materials from daily life such as handbills, comics, signs, old doors, which he has culled from his frequent travels. There is an abundance of invented and appropriated imagery and iconography which reference race, war, family, religion, poverty, wealth, people, and places amongst other subject matter. His powerful paintings and fluid spirited compositions combine to give the works a dense and engrossing narrative power. [Extract : Stephen Wirtz Gallery]

Raymond Saunders : Paintings

Raymond Saunders : Pittsburgh

Raymond Saunders : Beauty As Empathy

Taku Aramasa : Photography (Pinhole Camera)

Akita
gelatin silver print
2004

Aomori
gelatin silver print
2004

Kyoto
gelatin silver print
2003

Nara
gelatin silver print
2003

Nara
gelatin silver print
2003

Nara
gelatin silver print
2003

Presented in Sakura are black and white pinhole photographs of the glorious displays of blooming cherry trees at the time of Sakura Matsuri, the annual cherry blossom festival in Japan. Aramasa employs the pinhole process for this series, a primitive photographic technique that functions like a miniature camera obscura, where light passes through tiny opening in a lensless camera and registers the image directly on film. The considered choice of this basic photographic method with its inherent immediacy reflects Aramasa’s desire to directly mirror his experience of this spectacular event in nature. The images are soft rather than sharp, due to the lack of a focusing lens and the long exposures required, and this resulting “blurriness” and distortion lends an effect of delirious motion to the imagery as the ephemeral blossoms fall from the trees and dust the landscape. [Extract : Stephen Wirtz Gallery]

Taku Aramasa : Photography