DAYTON, OH.- The Dayton Visual Arts Center presents Navigation: Personal and Geographical Landscapes, an exhibition representing three contemporary photographers who utilize alternative image-making techniques through camera-less methods. Navigation opened October 7th and runs through November 5th, 2016. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with FotoFocus Biennial 2016.
“DVAC is proud to present Navigation in conjunction with The FotoFocus Biennial,” said Eva Buttacavoli, Executive Director for DVAC. “Organized around the theme of Photography, the Undocument, the Biennial includes over 60 exhibitions throughout Cincinnati, Dayton and the surrounding region that comments upon, and questions assumption about, the documentary character of photography and the boundaries between fact and fabrication.”
The three artists featured in Navigation are Dennie Eagleson Greenberg, Tracy Longley Cook, and John Sousa. These artists were selected through the 2014 Biennial Call for Exhibitions, juried by Jason Franz, Founding Executive Director & Chief Curator, Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center, Cincinnati; John Kortlander, Professor, Drawing & Painting, Columbus College of Art and Design and 2012 DVAC Biennial Call Artist; and Liz Maugens, Co-Founder & Director, Zygote Press, Cleveland.
Dennie Eagleson Greenberg is an organic farmer and makes photographic work using materials from her land as source. She works with a process called lumen printing, which includes putting outdated darkroom paper in contact with plant materials and exposing them to direct sun for a significant length of time.
“The plants draw their own image through the interaction between their own biology and chemical compounds in the emulsion of the paper,” states Greenberg in her artist’s statement. “The process captures the veins of lily pads, the sweet circles of nasturtium leaves, and the delicate hairs of corn silk, a transformation made of sun, time, chemistry, and alchemy.”
Tracy Longley-Cook, an Associate Professor of photography at Wright State University, explains that her interests are strongly influenced by themes relating to place, transformation, and perception. Through the use of experimental and traditional techniques, she incorporates a variety of working methods into her photography and prints.
In this series, she utilizes portions of her body and photographic chemistry to create direct imprints on film. The images mimic aerial landscape photographs, where elements such as skin, hair, and body fluids are abstracted to create visual representations that emulate land and water formations.
“Our bodies reveal the residue of experience,” states Cook in her artist statement. “Skin is a primary reflection of a person as it denotes age, cultural identity and race, wellbeing, as well as identity. Similarly, the surface of various terrains within the landscape offers a comparable record of the earth’s changing topography. Natural and human influenced alterations, both gradual and immediate, modify and transform our environment over time. Our geographic surroundings, like our bodies are etched with a narrative of its own evolution.”
John Sousa’s long-term focus has been photography and language and he believes in using style as well as the formal elements of art (line, shape, color, etc.) to more thoroughly explore his interests. His series features computer-compiled photographic images printed with UV-cured inks over a textured surface of paint and collage fragments (made from photo-silk screened puff-ink on cloth) with transparent glazes on honeycomb aluminum panels.
Sousa states, “In addition to the formal concerns I have with paint and photography, I am examining the concept of “pareidolia,” a phenomenon in which one perceives meaning in abstract stimuli – for example seeing images in cloud-filled sky. It is the essence of our nature to look for meaning. My work is not concerned with portraying the world, but rather our perception of the world.”
