MAY - OCTOBER, 2020
The "Flat File Feature" has shifted to the new "Portfolio Platform" to provide the focus to a more streamlined online presence. The Portfolio Platform provides the opportunity for photographers to showcase a portfolio of photographic work prominently online. The portfolios are available for patrons of the gallery to go online and view, learn about the photographers and their work through the images and biographies and artist statements, and have the opportunity to purchase photographs. Each portfolio consists of 12 - 20 images.
PORTFOLIO PLATFORM - SPRING 2020
FEATURED ARTISTS:
Matthew Derezinski, Kirksville, MO
Paul Kimmerling, Jackson Heights, NY
Diana Cheren Nygren, Brookline, MA
Matt Sampson, Baileys Harbor, WI
J. Michael Skaggs, Cincinnati, OH
Diana Cheren Nygren
"When the Trees Are Gone"
Surroundings play a dominant role in shaping our experience. Nygren treasures the city and tries to make space for quiet contemplation within it. Born out of three ongoing series - abstract compositions of urban structures, beachgoers and dramatic skies — this series imagines city dwellers searching for moments of relief in a world shaped by climate change, and the struggle to find balance between an environment in crisis and manmaade structures.
The question of the struggle between nature and the built environment is ever more central in urban life. In these images, relaxed beachgoers find themselves amidst carefully composed urban settings in front of dramatic skies. They are searching without seeming to find what they are looking for. Peaceful moments of strolling along the beach or standing listening to the waves while choosing the perfect spot to sit down, are inevitably infused with tension and frustration. The beach becomes rising tides, threatening the very foundation of the city.
The clash of nature and city results in an absurd profusion of visual noise and little relief. The resulting images lay bare challenges to both Nygren's urban fantasy and to city planners, and the problematic nature of the future that lies ahead for humanity and the planet.
Diana Cheren Nygren is a fine art photographer from Boston, Massachusetts. Her work explores the visual character of place defined through physical environment and weather. Place has implications for our experience of the world, and reveals hints about the culture around it.
Diana was trained as an art historian with a focus on modern and contemporary art, and the relationship of artistic production to its socio-political context. Her emphasis on careful composition in her photographic work, as well as her subject matter, reflects this training.
Diana's photographs have received numerous honorable mentions from the Lucie Foundation and have been included in a number of juried exhibitions at Subjectively Objective, PhotoPlace Gallery, here at the Midwest Center for Photography, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, PH21 Gallery in Budapest, Arlington Center for the Arts, the Griffin Museum of Photography, and the Curated Fridge. A book of her photographs, "Capturing the Light", was published in 2017. All images in the Portfolio are Archival Pigment Prints, 16" X16" on 17" X 17" sheet, 2019, $1,000 each.
Paul Kimmerling
"Untitled"
A loving curiosity drives many of Kimmerling's pursuits. And this curiosity sparks engagement with the world — with people and with the various environments in which he lives or moves. Photography is Kimmerling's primary visual mode of loving engagement with his world.
This love is, in essence, a posture of openness which facilitates his connection to this big, sacred world and allows him to see what's in it. Through that openness and connection, he is often drawn to what the light is doing, to the interactions of shapes and lines, to movement, texture and to seemingly random or serendipitous juxtapositions of elements.
The practice of photography calls Kimmerling to his spiritual homeplace from which he is an appreciator of beauty, a discoverer of worlds, a lover of the ordinary and a grateful inhabitant of creation. Kimmerling's work proclaims that the quotidian is interesting, alive, beautiful. That it is waiting to be revealed and appreciated. He finds it true what Minor White (American photographer, 1908-1976) declared true for him: Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer it has chosen. All images in the portfolio are Archival Inkjet Prints, 8" X 8" if square, 7" X 9" if rectangle, 2017 - 2020, $135 each.
J. Michael Skaggs
"Liberation"
"Liberation" is a retrospective documentary with selected images from 1993 - 2020 that are visual cultural representations of the results of democracy and emancipation in the United States. The imagery begins with the Martin Luther King Jr. 30th Anniversary March in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1993 and concludes with the Martin Luther King Jr. Day March in Cincinnati, OH on January 20, 2020.
The images between 1994 - 2019 are from further representations of "Liberation" including tyranny, sovereignty and liberty. These include: pre- and post - 911 NYC cityscape juxtaposed with "Liberation" statue; the Passion Play with a Black Jesus; the killing of the unarmed 19 year old Timothy Thomas by a Cincinnati police officer resulting in civil unrest; contemplation at the Lincoln Memorial between a father and son; break time with two Latino workers in Paris, KY; the remains of abolitionists' homes and the historical and contemporary paths to them in Ohio and Kentucky, including Union Baptist Cemetery Desecration.
The "Liberation" retrospective documentary project is a work in progress as salvation continues into the 21st century.
J. Michael Skaggs is a Lecturer in Communication Studies, College of Informatics at Northern Kentucky Univeristy. His photography has appeared in Black & White Magazine, Licking River Review and is in the collections of the Ft. Wayne Museum of Art and National City Bank. Michael also coordinates the photography exhibitions in the COI Advising Center Gallery at NKU. Michael has 3 books: "Americans Revisited Volume I" from Edgecliff Press (2008), "What Pain Does", Poet Megan D. Henson and Photographer J. Michael Skaggs, from Dos Madres Press (2017), and "Invisible Woman", Poet Megan D. Hensen and Photographer J. Michael Skaggs, from Dos Madres Press (Forthcoming 2020). All images in portfolio are Archival Inkjet Prints, 10" X 15, 1993 - 2020, $200 each.
Matthew Derezinski
"Untitled"
This work incorporates layers of textural and organic imagery that draws upon Derezinski's interest in decaying architecture, nature and the Midwestern landscape in which he lives. This imagery, rich in personally derived symbolism, is organized into mystical and mysterious landscapes. While the stories created in the work are not explicit, Derezinski incorporates symbols that, like signposts, encourage the viewer to navigate the implied narratives in their own way, based upon their own personal experience. All images in the portfolio are Archival Inkjet Prints, 13" X 19", 2012 - 2017.
Matt Sampson
"Seasons from Above: Door County"
"Seasons from Above: Door County" is a selection of aerial photographs captured via drone highlighting the ever-changing seasonality of Door County, Wisconsin. Drones provide Sampson the ability to photograph landscapes with incredibly unique perspectives. Matt Sampson's vision is to document the natural beauty all around us from above, constantly seeking interesting patterns and textures and highlighting the diversity in our landscape — and in the seasons.
Matt hopes this set of work, spanning the last four years, inspires you to reconnect with the outdoors and embrace the diversity in the world we live in. Don't shy away from the uncomfortable. Embrace the unique beauty in each season, and all the transitions between.
Matt Sampson is an award-winning landscape, drone, real estate & product photographer based out of Door County, Wisconsin. Matt grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, IL. At a young age, Matt took frequent trips to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado with his family — which instilled in him a deep love for the outdoors. Matt attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for college, before moving to San Diego, CA for PhD studies in Chemistry at the University of California. Before he knew it, photography was the center of his life. Matt moved back to the Midwest after his PhD studies — settling in Door County, WI to focus on other professional interests, including photography. All images in the portfolio are Archival Inkjet Prints, 12" X 16", 2016 - 2020.
