Image + Object
An exhibition exploring innovations in alternative process photography, featuring works by Bay Area artists, Chris McCaw, Moira McDonald, Klea McKenna, and Meghann Riepenhoff
July 10 - November 29, 2020
Opening reception date tbd.
Klea McKenna, Artifact #3, 2017, Photographic Relief. Unique Gelatin Silver Photogram , Impression of a fragment of a sequined, silk dupatta (India, 1930s)
Image + Object is an exhibition that explores alternative process photography through the unique photographic works of four Bay Area contemporary photographers, each of whom challenges our notions of photography as reflection, documentation and separation.
This exhibition considers the history of photography and demonstrates how contemporary alternative process photographers innovate while embracing traditional analog techniques and materials. By incorporating physical matter and texture directly into photographic paper and chemicals, the end result becomes both an image and an object simultaneously. Each of these four artists present us with unique objects that depend upon physical interaction as much as what might appear on the surface. The visual and the tactile are married in the work of art. The exhibition opens on July 10 and runs through November 29. An opening reception date will be announced in the coming weeks.
Chris McCaw says of his Sunburn Series (of which select pieces are included in the exhibition): “By putting the paper in my film holder, in place of film, I create a one of a kind paper negative. Being the first generation, the evidence of the scorching is right there, front and center and the solarized image becomes a positive. The gelatin in the paper gets cooked and leaves wonderful colors of orange and red, with ash that ranges from a glossy black to an iridescent metallic surface. Becoming more of a collaboration between artist and subject, in the resulting image, the sun has become an active participant in part of the printmaking.”
Meghann Riepenhoff, For Anna, Vol. II, Plate 21, 2017, Unique Dynamic Cyanotype, Algae
Moira McDonald describes her series Pacifica (of which select pieces are included in the exhibition): “I placed my darkroom trays out overnight to collect small puddles of the clouds to dip my silver papers in. They were then exposed on an overcast day until the fog was either absorbed by the paper or evaporated back into the atmosphere. These photographs are traces of automated nature, of collecting and letting go, of natural breath, of process, and of intervention, participation and engagement within the landscape - these are photographs of the fog in Pacifica.”
Says Klea McKenna, “I use simple materials to make my photographic rubbings’ and ‘photographic reliefs,’ relying on analog light-sensitive paper, my hands, a flashlight and sometimes an etching press. In darkness, I emboss paper with artifacts of material culture and patterns from the natural landscape, then I cast light onto the resulting textures.”
Meghann Riepenhoff describes her series, For Anna, as an homage to Anna Atkins (1799-1871), an amateur botanist who is most known for her cyanotype photograms of algae specimens. Works from this series that are on view in the exhibition, are camera-less cyanotypes made at the shoreline, where algae and debris from the landscape adhere to the photographic materials.
The different methods of each photographer result in a collaboration and direct connection of the process and the subject of the image. While the resulting art may look different, these intentional processes bind these artists together both stylistically and philosophically.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Chris McCaw is a San Francisco-based photographic artist. His work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the J Paul Getty Museum, among many others. His work is also held in many private collections. McCaw is currently represented by Yossi Milo Gallery, New York; Haines Gallery, San Francisco; and Candela Books and Gallery, Richmond, VA.
Moira McDonald is an Australian-American photographic artist working and living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography from California College of the Arts and received a Master of Fine Art at San Jose State University. McDonalds photographs have been widely exhibited throughout the United States and abroad. She is represented by Rubber Factory in New York, and independently in California.
Klea McKenna is a San Francisco-based visual artist whose work has been published and has shown internationally at venues such as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Datz Museum of Art, Korea; the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; and the Hecksher Museum, New York. Her photograms are held in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; among others. McKenna is currently represented by Euqinom Gallery, San Francisco and Gitterman Gallery, New York.
Meghann Riepenhoff is based in Bainbridge Island, WA and San Francisco. Her work has been exhibited and is held in the collections at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. Additional collections include the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Ontario, Canada, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Solo and group exhibitions include Yossi Milo Gallery, Haines Gallery, San Francisco Camerawork, the New York Public Library, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She was also a 2018-19 Guggenheim Fellow. Riepenhoff is currently represented by Yossi Milo Gallery, New York; Haines Gallery, San Francisco; and Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta.
Image + Object is curated by Allison Railo.
Major program support provided by the Town of Los Gatos.
