LESLIE JEAN-BART : Memories of Childhood

 

'The Pull from The Sea'

© Leslie Jean-Bart 2018
double-click to enlarge images

'Strolling' and 'Contrasting Views'

© Leslie Jean-Bart 2018

"The sea is magical to me. That is something I became aware of at an extremely early age when my older brother and I started to swim in the ocean where, during the summer in Haiti, we would spend countless hours of absolute delight. These memories have nourished and sustained me somehow. By the sea I can regain my balance, by the sea I can think clearer, by the sea I can create, and by the sea I can be a child again without care what others may think." – Leslie Jean-Bart

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One of my favorite photographers, Leslie Jean-Bart, is featured in the "Portfolio Showcase" exhibition ‘Memories of Childhood’ at Davis Orton Gallery. Also showing are Michal Greenboim,  Kev Filmore and Flynn Larsen. Opening Celebration and Artist Talk Saturday April 7th from 5-7pm.

‘Memories of Childhood’

 Michal Greenboim and Kev Filmore

 Leslie Jean-Bart and Flynn Larsen

April 7th - May 6th, 2018

Davis Orton Gallery

Hudson, NY

FILTER PHOTO FESTIVAL 2015: Portfolio Review Round-Up / Toni Pepe

The Second Moment

   Photograph © Toni Pepe    

The Second Moment

   Photograph © Toni Pepe 

The Second Moment

   Photograph © Toni Pepe  

 

I met Toni Pepe while I was a Portfolio Reviewer for the 7th Annual Filter Photo Festival in Chicago. While at Filter, I reviewed over 60 photographers portfolio’s and/or book projects. I'll try to post as many as possible over the next month or so….Check out Pepe’s unique images on her website.

The Second Moment

 

Toni Pepe is a Boston-based artist currently teaching photography at Boston University. Her photographs and installation work address the construction of identity and the performativity of narrative, gender, and memory. She is most interested in utilizing photography as a forum for interdisciplinary exploration -- she often employs literature, neuroscience, and cinema as source materials for her work. She has exhibited her images throughout the United States and abroad. Toni’s work has been displayed in solo exhibitions at the University of Notre Dame and the Center for Photography Woodstock. In addition, Toni was named a 2011 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Program finalist and is currently in the Danforth Museum's collection as well as many private collections.

TONI PEPE WEBSITE

JESSICA TAMPAS: Color, Summer, Screen

 JP and Katie 

Photograph (c) Jessica Tampas

Brooke with Doll

Photograph (c) Jessica Tampas 

 Trevor

Photograph (c) Jessica Tampas

"I'm interested in the idea of the barrier. Who or what is in front or behind; who is in the dark and who is far away -- buried, even, behind this decaying screen." –Jessica Tampas

Jessica Tampas' latest series, Color, Summer, Screen, was recently shown at FilterPhoto's 2013 Festival. Building on her prior b&w series, Lucid, Tampas continues to photograph the children vacationing in the lake cottage community in South West Michigan where she and her own family have spent the last five summers. By now, the area's children have grown, and are taking on stronger identities, and we want to know their names. CC, Brooke, Conner, Orly, JP:  no longer small, they confront the viewer languorously, honestly, inquisitively. The additional use of color adds a heightened sense of their presence.

 Unbroken (80 x 60″) Photographer Jessica Tampas 

The Chicago Project V Exhibition, Catherine Edelman Gallery, 2013

Unbroken: "People often want to know the history behind these dolls. Who were their previous owners? How did they come to look the way they do? Do I collect them, alter them? My approach to creating this series is far more subjective. I never set out to become a collector, per se (though by now I've amassed more than 100 early- and mid-century dolls), and I don't alter them in any way. Frankly, I'm not so concerned with these dolls' history, even if I play an important role in it, giving them a longevity they probably never expected to have. For me these little beings are simply heartbreaking creatures, typologies of survival and loss, and, I suppose, ultimately, psychological portraits of something inside myself that I might not otherwise be able to express as an adult. We have all weathered emotional traumas in the transition from childhood to now. By not altering the dolls, I let their faces tell their own story -- one that I feel is ultimately about what it means to be both fragile and a survivor, and…human."

JESSICA TAMPAS

KLOMPCHING GALLERY: Annual Summer Show Curated by W.M. Hunt + Darren Ching

 Mountain IV, 2012 from the Mountain series ©Peter Croteau
Pigment Print, 46" x 36" image on 50" x 40" sheet
Edition of 5, from $4,850 ($4,000 unframed)
www.petercroteau.com

Blue Organza, 2012 from the Fabrication series ©Maxine Helfman

Pigment Print, 17" x 25" image on 24" x 36" sheet
Edition of 12, from $2,400 ($1,800 unframed)
www.maxinehelfman.com

FRESH 2013: ANNUAL SUMMER SHOW

July 18 - August 10

The FRESH exhibition is curated, from an international open call for submissions, by the esteemed collector/curator, W.M. Hunt and Klompching Gallery owner, Darren Ching. Five photographers were then selected from the 300+ submissions.

"This is an opportunity for the gallery to present work by upcoming photographers, who we would not normally have the opportunity to work with. It's also an excellent platform upon which to alert collectors to five new voices in photography and invest in their photographic artworks–through acquisitions–early in their careers. With this in mind the exhibition has been carefully curated, with each of the photographers well represented, through having several photographs from one body of work included in the exhibition."(KLOMPCHING)

KLOMPCHING GALLERY

111 Front Street, Suite 206  |  Brooklyn  NY 11201

Artists Reception: July 18th, 6pm–8pm

An Interview With W.M. Hunt

MIKOLAJ NOWACKI: Photography

Defending Chad: Iriba, Chad, 2008

 Photograph © Mikolaj Nowacki

Street scene. Wroclaw, Poland. 2007

 Photograph © Mikolaj Nowacki

 

 Defending Chad: Iriba, Chad, 2008

 Photograph © Mikolaj Nowacki

 River Odra: Wroclaw River Shipyard. Poland, 2009

 Photograph © Mikolaj Nowacki

Mikolaj Nowacki was born in Wroclaw, Poland in 1972. He is a graduate of the University of Wroclaw, where he obtained a law degree in 1997. He later renounced law to focus on photography. He worked full-time as a photojournalist for the Polish daily, Gazeta Wyborcza. During this time he also worked with the daily, Polska The Times, and Finland's national newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat. Nowacki also published his photo reportages in the Polish editions of National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Newsweek and the Polish weekly magazine Polityka. Nowacki is represented in the VII Mentor Program.

MIKOLAJ NOWACKI

JULIE BLACKMON: New Work at Fahey/Klein

Queen, 2010
Photograph © Julie Blackmon

Night Movie, 2011
Photograph © Julie Blackmon

New work from photographer Julie Blackmon’s ongoing series “Domestic Vacations” depicts imagined, as well as autobiographical, narratives inspired by the hectic and multifaceted domestic life of her own family. “As an artist and as a mother,” Blackmon states “I believe life’s most poignant moments come from the ability to fuse fantasy and reality: to see the mythic amidst the chaos.”

"The painterly influences of Julie Blackmon’s work are further emphasized by the large scale of the works being exhibited including four Archival Pigment Print photographs each measuring over 4 ½ feet tall and six feet wide. Blackmon states, "The paintings of Steen, along with those of other Dutch and Flemish genre painters, helped inspire this body of work. As Steen’s personal narratives of family life depicted nearly 400 years ago, the conflation of art and life is an area I have explored in photographing the everyday life of my family and the lives of my sisters and their families at home. These images are both fictional and auto-biographical, and reflect not only our lives today and as children growing up in a large family, but also move beyond the documentary to explore the fantastic elements of our everyday lives, both imagined and real.”'

Julie Blackmon: New Work

Fahey/Klein Gallery / March 8 – April 21
Also Showing Vee Speers

JULIE BLACKMON: New Work

Snowday, 2010
Photograph © Julie Blackmon

Sharpie, 2011
Photograph © Julie Blackmon

Night Movie, 2011
Photograph © Julie Blackmon

Airstream, 2011
Photograph © Julie Blackmon

The Dutch proverb "a Jan Steen household" originated in the 17th century and is used today to refer to a home in disarray, full of rowdy children and boisterous family gatherings.

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JULIE BLACKMON is the oldest of nine children and now the mother of three. Her photographs have been honored with numerous awards since she began exhibiting, including American Photo Emerging Artists 2008, first prize from CENTER/Santa Fe Center for Photography Project Competition, and PDN's 30, among many others.

DOMESTIC VACATIONS: "The paintings of Steen, along with those of other Dutch and Flemish genre painters, helped inspire this body of work. As Steen’s personal narratives of family life depicted nearly 400 yrs. ago, the conflation of art and life is an area I have explored in photographing the everyday life of my family and the lives of my sisters and their families at home. These images are both fictional and auto-biographical, and reflect not only our lives today and as children growing up in a large family, but also move beyond the documentary to explore the fantastic elements of our everyday lives, both imagined and real...read more

Julie Blackmon's Domestic Vacations
New Work at Photo-eye Gallery

MONIKA MERVA: The City of Children

Rabbit Ears, Hungary, 2005
The City of Children (Kehrer Verlag , 2011)

Mouse, Hungary, 2004
Photograph (c) Monika Merva /All Rights Reserved

Red Bottle, Hungary, 2005
Photograph (c) Monika Merva /All Rights Reserved

"Children generally know whom to trust, especially those who´ve experienced hardships. Monika Merva brought empathy and compassion as well as skill to this project and we can feel it in the children's responses. They allowed her into their private spaces and she's honored their trust with vivid, memorable portraits." –Anne Wilkes Tucker, Curator of Photography, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

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The City of Children: Photographs by Monika Merva

"Monika Merva, a first generation American of Hungarian descent, has spent almost a decade visiting and photographing the children of Gyermekközpont in Hungary for this, her first monograph. Her photographs of the children are vivid and personal, the pacing of the rich, color images has a comfortably varied formal character. Though the cultural divide between the democratic West and former Soviet bloc countries seems almost unbreachable at times, Merva's images do so slowly — without obscuring their cultural specificity, they form a potent bridge between the viewer and subject."–photo-eye Books

Daylight Magazine Interview with Merva

JULIE BLACKMON: New Domestic Vacations

Loading Zone, 2009 © Julie Blackmon / All rights reserved

Portrait, 2009 © Julie Blackmon / All rights reserved

The After Party, 2010 © Julie Blackmon / All rights reserved

Tinkertoys, 2010 © Julie Blackmon / All rights reserved

The stress, the chaos, and the need to simultaneously escape and connect are issues that I investigate in this body of work....I believe there are moments that can be found throughout any given day that bring sanctuary. It is in finding these moments amidst the stress of the everyday that my life as a mother parallels my work as an artist, and where the dynamics of family life throughout time seem remarkably unchanged. As an artist and as a mother, I believe life’s most poignant moments come from the ability to fuse fantasy and reality: to see the mythic amidst the chaos.

Julie Blackmon

Domestic Vacations
Published by Radius Books (here)

More About Domestic Vacations

ALEXANDRA HUDDLESTON: Timbuktu

Daily Life in Black and White: Timbuktu, Mali
Photograph (c) Alexandra Huddleston /All Rights Reserved

Divine Knowledge: Timbuktu, Mali
Photograph (c) Alexandra Huddleston /All Rights Reserved

Divine Knowledge: Timbuktu, Mali
Photograph (c) Alexandra Huddleston /All Rights Reserved

Daily Life in Black and White: Timbuktu, Mali
Photograph (c) Alexandra Huddleston /All Rights Reserved

Daily Life in Black and White: Timbuktu, Mali
Photograph (c) Alexandra Huddleston /All Rights Reserved

ALEXANDRA HUDDLESTON, an International Documentary Photographer, spent a year photographing in Timbuktu on a Fulbright Scholarship. She states she wants "to open doors between cultures and individuals through photography and, in so doing, to enable them to decide how and if they want to change their worlds."

ALEXANDRA HUDDLESTON WEBSITE

FRIENDS OF FRIENDS PHOTOGRAPHY AUCTION: Angkor Hospital For Children

Dahomey Children, Dahomey, 1967
Photograph (c) Irving Penn /All Rights Reserved

Seeing Eyes 2002
Photograph (c) William Wegman /All Rights Reserved

Angkor #26, Angkor Wat, Cambodia 1993
Photograph (c) Kenro Izu /All Rights Reserved

Turbulent Dreams
Photograph (c) John Dugdale /All Rights Reserved

Untitled 2007
Photograph (c) Richard Gere/All Rights Reserved

Revelation 2004
Photograph (c) Sean Perry /All Rights Reserved

DECEMBER 1st
13th ANNUAL FRIENDS OF FRIENDS PHOTOGRAPHY AUCTION
Benefiting the Angkor Hospital For Children

KENRO IZU, during a series of photography trips to Cambodia’s Angkor monuments, was forever changed by his encounters with ill, malnourished and disfigured children in desperate need of medical care. Izu founded Friends Without A Border in 1996 and dedicated himself to building a pediatric hospital in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Angkor Hospital for Children (AHC) was completed in 1999 and has since treated over 650,000 children. Absentee and Phone Bids

ALL AUCTION PHOTOGRAPHS

FRIENDS WITHOUT A BORDER

JESSICA TODD HARPER: Interior Exposure

(12-time Olympic Medalist)
Dara Torres at home in Florida with her daughter

from Newsweek 2009 (c) Jessica Todd Harper/All rights reserved

Self Portrait with Christopher, Papa, and Ah-Choo, 2003
(c) Jessica Todd Harper/All rights reserved

Becky with Zephyr and Christopher, 2004
(c) Jessica Todd Harper/All rights reserved

(Untitled) 2009 (c) Jessica Todd Harper/All rights reserved

There are no guarantees that if you work hard enough, or are talented enough, that you will be successful, be able to support yourself, or importantly, make a meaningful contribution to others. But in the meantime, if you are an artist, the art just comes - whether you like it or not- because you can't stop it.

Read the complete Interview with Jessica Todd Harper and Michael Werner on Two Way Lens. View Jessica Todd Harper website

JULIE BLACKMON: Domestic Vacations

Rooster, 2007 © Julie Blackmon / All rights reserved

Powerade, 2005 © Julie Blackmon / All rights reserved

PC, 2005 © Julie Blackmon / All rights reserved
Inspired by the Velásquez painting Las Meninas

Front Porch, 2005 © Julie Blackmon / All rights reserved

The Dissolute Household painting by Jan Steen

The Dutch proverb "a Jan Steen household" originated in the 17th century and is used today to refer to a home in disarray, full of rowdy children and boisterous family gatherings.

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JULIE BLACKMON is the oldest of nine children and now the mother of three. Her photographs have been honored with numerous awards since she began exhibiting, including American Photo Emerging Artists 2008, first prize from CENTER/Santa Fe Center for Photography Project Competition, and PDN's 30, among others.

DOMESTIC VACATIONS: "The paintings of Steen, along with those of other Dutch and Flemish genre painters, helped inspire this body of work. As Steen’s personal narratives of family life depicted nearly 400 yrs. ago, the conflation of art and life is an area I have explored in photographing the everyday life of my family and the lives of my sisters and their families at home. These images are both fictional and auto-biographical, and reflect not only our lives today and as children growing up in a large family, but also move beyond the documentary to explore the fantastic elements of our everyday lives, both imagined and real.

The stress, the chaos, and the need to simultaneously escape and connect are issues that I investigate in this body of work. We live in a culture where we are both "child centered" and "self-obsessed." The struggle between living in the moment versus escaping to another reality is intense since these two opposites strive to dominate. Caught in the swirl of soccer practices, play dates, work, and trying to find our way in our "make-over" culture, we must still create the space to find ourselves. The expectations of family life have never been more at odds with each other. These issues, as well as the relationship between the domestic landscape of the past and present, are issues I have explored in these photographs. I believe there are moments that can be found throughout any given day that bring sanctuary. It is in finding these moments amidst the stress of the everyday that my life as a mother parallels my work as an artist, and where the dynamics of family life throughout time seem remarkably unchanged. As an artist and as a mother, I believe life’s most poignant moments come from the ability to fuse fantasy and reality: to see the mythic amidst the chaos." — Julie Blackmon

Julie Blackmon 2009 New Work
Radius Books "Domestic Vacations"

BRYAN MELTZ: African Resettlement in Georgia

Photograph © Bryan Meltz/ All rights reserved

Photograph © Bryan Meltz/ All rights reserved
Click image to enlarge

Photograph © Bryan Meltz/ All rights reserved

This project began in 2006 after working as a still photographer for a PBS documentary about refugee resettlement in America. I have had the privilege of getting to know these families, and been witness to their overwhelming spirit and resilience as they assimilate to American life, while still preserving the traditions of their culture.

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BRYAN MELTZ is a contributing photographer to the international photojournalism collective WIR Pictures and has collaborated with nonprofit organizations such as Engeye Health Clinic in Uganda, Just Cause, and AbsolutelyPositive, an AIDS service organization in Atlanta. She graduated with a Visual Journalism degree from The Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California and in 2005 was the recipient of the Yarka Vendrinska Memorial Scholarship Award for emerging female documentary photographer. Her editorial clients include Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, Financial Times, The Fader, Vibe, Blender, XXL, Mass Appeal, and Vice Magazine.

In the past twenty years nearly 50,000 refugees have resettled in and around Clarkston, Georgia, located ten miles east of Atlanta. It's estimated over 75 languages are now spoken in this small Georgian town. The majority of people resettled are from the African nations of Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, DRC, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Board of Health estimates show over 71% are female, and all of those are survivors of civil conflict, war, torture, trauma, rape and/or genocide.

"The Somali Bantu are becoming the largest African group from a single community to settle in the United States at one time, with nearly 13,000 arriving since 2004. Those who made it to America passed through rigorous security checks—a process that took from months to a year or more—and when they arrived they were confronted with a new world of difficulties. The Bantu, who were denied access to education and jobs, were almost completely untouched by modern life. Few could read or write in any language, and almost none spoke English. Most had never seen a light switch, a telephone, a set of stairs, or a building that wasn’t made of mud."

Meltz's portrait series Home Far From Home: Refugee Resettlement in Georgia has been recognized by the International Photography Awards, American Photo Images of the Year, annual Out of the South juried exhibit and a solo show at Composition Gallery in Atlanta. Bryan was one of 100 photographers invited to participate in Review Santa Fe 2009.

Bryan Meltz Website
Engeye Health Clinic