STEPHEN STROM: A Retrospective

VERVE Gallery of Photography Presents
Stephen Strom: A Retrospective

Opening Reception:
Friday, October 26, 2012, 5-7pm
VERVE Gallery

Gallery Talk in conjunction with the Marion Center for Photographic Arts at Santa Fe University of Art and Design:
Saturday, October 27, 2012, 3pm
Tipton Hall, Santa Fe University of Art & Design

Exhibition is on view Saturday, October 19, 2012 – January 19, 2013

VERVE Gallery of Photography is pleased to present Gallery Artist Stephen Strom in a Retrospective Exhibition. Stephen Strom: Retrospective is a survey of the artist’s photographic career including color prints from seven bodies of work created over the past 35 years.

Strom’s  images are a journey into a world both arid and infinite - blessed of a beauty that requires some eyes to adjust their notions of what constitutes beauty in the first place. He sees the world in a grain of sand, and in the wondrous forms that many grains of sand make. They intimate that the grain of sand was once a towering mountain, then a crag, then a boulder, then a rock, then a pebble, and that the world is a very old place in which such processes play out over millions of years. They sense heaven in a wildflower, and they speak to the wonder that we experience when we are able to attain a glimpse of something that we know but have never quite seen in the same way before: the pachydermatous wrinkles of ancient desert rises spotted with clumps of wildflowers; the unexpected greenery that springs up from the dry earth after a good soaking rain; the subtle gradations of color that move the eye along the stony contours of the Colorado Plateau, once the floor of silent seas. Those images attest at once to the infinite and the intimate. They are a hymn of praise to what can be held in the hand and to what the mind can scarcely comprehend.

Over the past few years, Strom has turned his eye from tellurian landscapes to those on Mars. Drawing on his professional life as an astronomer as well as a fine art photographer, he explores in his new series “Earth and Mars” the undulating shapes and colors seen on Martian desert landscapes.  With an aesthetic eye drawn to the commonality of patterns manifest in Martian and terrestrial scenes, all shaped by the same forces (ancient and active volcanoes, powerful winds, water, and asteroids) he captures the profound beauty fashioned by the laws of physics---“the interaction of the elemental: fire, earth, water and air.”

Strom describes the most recent body of work, Earth and Mars as follows:

“Over my career as an astronomer, I became drawn to, then seduced by the changing patterns of desert lands sculpted by the glancing light of the rising and setting sun: light that reveals forms molded both by millennial forces and yesterday’s cloudburst into undulations of shapes and colors. In response, I began what has become three decades long devotion to capturing images of those remarkable patterns and the rich history they encode.  The images in Earth and Mars represent both a 30-year visual exploration of the American landscape and the remarkable photographs produced by Martian orbiters, rovers and landers launched over the past two decades by NASA and its European counterpart, ESA (the European Space Agency). Tens of thousands of these images are available in digital form in public domain archives, which as an experiment, I decided to examine from the perspective of an artist rather than an astronomer. In doing so, I tried to imagine myself standing on the surface of Mars, or on a high Martian mountain and searching for patterns which evoke the same powerful emotional response as tellurian landscapes.”

“The Martian images were selected after examining long, digital ‘strip maps’ available in the public domain, data from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.  The images displayed in this exhibition were chosen both for their aesthetic qualities and their value in illustrating the action of familiar physical processes on another world.

The retrospective contains images from 6 other bodies of work; a few selected examples follow:

Author and essayist Gregory McNamee describes the work in Stephen Strom’s book Earth Forms (Dewi Lewis, 2009) as follows:

“Stephen Strom’s images speak to that land as it is: a place that, in the main, is without humans, late entrants onto that vast stage. The ensuing sense of solitude that those images convey is not necessarily lonely, frightening, or overwhelming as much as it is humbling. Against such sprawling backdrops, as against the vastness of the heavens above, we humans matter very little. That realization alone should encourage us to take better care of places that will outlive us by orders on orders of magnitude.

Stephen Strom’s series, Illusions of Intimacy, are landscape interpretations, both of the desert and seaside beaches that express in their quiet, understated way the same powerful combination of pattern, history and emotion as the grander landscape. Stephen speaks of this series: “What I aspire to create is what the late essayist Ellen Meloy described as a ‘geography of infinite cycles, of stolid pulses of emergence and subsidence, which, in terms geologic and human, is the story of the earth itself.” My hope is that the viewer will find in this collection what Meloy called the ‘calm of water’, the ‘spill of liquid silences’, and a ‘quality of light and color that pierces the heart.’”

BIOGRAPHY

Stephen Strom spent his professional career as an astronomer. Born in 1942 in New York City, he graduated from Harvard College in 1962. In 1964 he received his Masters and Ph.D. in Astronomy from Harvard University. From 1964-68 he held appointments as Lecturer in Astronomy at Harvard and Astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. He then moved to the State University of New York at Stony Brook and served for 4 years as Coordinator of Astronomy and Astrophysics. In 1972 he accepted an appointment at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, AZ, where he served as Chair of the Galactic and Extragalactic program. The following 15 years were spent at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA; from 1984-1997 he served as Chairman of the Five College Astronomy Department. In 1998 Strom returned to Tucson as a member of the scientific staff at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory where he carried out research directed at understanding the formation of stars and planetary systems and served as an Associate Director of the Observatory. He retired from NOAO in May, 2007.

Stephen began photographing in 1978. He studied both the history of photography and silver and non-silver photography in studio courses with Keith McElroy, Todd Walker and Harold Jones at the University of Arizona. His work, largely interpretations of landscapes, has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and is held in several permanent collections including the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, the University of Oklahoma Art Museum, the Mead Museum in Amherst, MA, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. His photography complements poems and essays in three books published by the University of Arizona Press: Secrets from the Center of the World, a collaboration with Muscogee poet Joy Harjo; Sonoita Plain: Views of a Southwestern Grassland, a collaboration with ecologists Jane and Carl Bock; Tseyi (Deep in the Rock): Reflections on Canyon de Chelly co-authored with Navajo poet Laura Tohe; as well in : Otero Mesa: America’s Wildest Grassland, with Gregory McNamee and Stephen Capra, University of New Mexico Press (2008). Dewi Lewis Publishing published the monograph Earth Forms comprised of 43 images, in 2009. 

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY,
Director: JENNIFER SCHLESINGER-HANSON
Email: director@vervegallery.com
Phone: 505-982-5009
www.vervegallery.com
 

BURNSTINE/CROUSER/ETHRIDGE Show Press Release

VERVE Gallery of Photography Presents

A Sense of TIME
Fine art photography work of

SUSAN BURNSTINE
MICHAEL CROUSER
DOUGLAS ETHRIDGE

(Click on a name to see his or her work on VERVE's website.)

Opening Reception: Friday, September 14, 2012, 5-7pm
Gallery Talk: Saturday, September 15, 2012, 2-4pm

Exhibition is on view Saturday, August 24, 2012 – October 13, 2012

VERVE Gallery of Photography is pleased to present our Fall Exhibition, A Sense of Time, displaying the works of three VERVE Gallery Artists - Susan Burnstine, Michael Crouser and Douglas Ethridge.  Susan Burnstine’s, Absence of Being and Michael Crouser’s, Sin Tiempo address time or the absence or end of time and timelessness in their splendid imagery. Their work evokes a timeless sensibility, exploring both nightmarish dreams and chanced vignettes, as if frozen in time for eternity.  On the other hand, Douglas Ethridge’s, A Cycle of Seasons, is an engaging juxtaposition in that his images explore the timeless beauty one finds in recurring seasonal vacillations.

SUSAN BURNSTINE
Absence of Being

(The Last Goodbye, 2012 - Susan Burnstine)

Susan Burnstine is one of the few photographers today avidly pursuing alternative processes to create an idiosyncratic and deeply personal visual landscape. As a child, she suffered vivid nightmares that stayed with her for days. When awake, these powerful dreams would induce a liminal state that opened up an exploration of the sublevels of her mind, wherein she discovered a curious synthesis of magic and reality. She found in these portals to the unknown states of mind that bridged the gap between real and unreal, and even symbolic intimations of life and death. Though the intensity of her dreams did not lessen as an adult, her response transformed. “Initially,” she says, “I was lost within the haze of my dreams. But now, it is through my dreams that I truly see.”  SF Weekly writes of Susan’s work: The undeniable beauty of Burnstine’s black-and-white photos [haunting and seductive interpretations of dreams], and their connection to dreams brought on by family tragedy, give them an intensity that is both intellectual and visceral.

“A plane disappears into the clouds. We can’t see it, hear it or touch it, but we know it’s there. Our senses can give us no tangible evidence it continues to exist. But still, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt it’s there. We suspend limitations of our senses, and believe.”

“When a person dies, do they simply cease to exist because they no longer have a physical presence? Or do they remain with us through the remnants of the lives they lived? When a building is razed, is it truly obliterated, or does its imprint remain in the collective unconscious?”

“This ongoing series explores how the past remains with us, if only in shadows. These images capture fleeting memories, spotted from the corner of an eye that vanish the moment we turn to really look. And yet they remain, for the imprint remains with us. We are living in the present, but the past reminds us that it is part of us, too, as is the future, and we of them.”

“With this body of work as with my former series, I captured these visions entirely in-camera using a collection of hand-made film cameras and lenses that are frequently unpredictable and technically challenging. The cameras are primarily made out of plastic, vintage camera parts and random household objects and the single element lenses are molded out of plastic and rubber. Learning to overcome their extensive limitations has required me to rely on instinct and intuition – the same tools that are key when trusting in the unseen.

Susan Burnstine is an award winning fine art and commercial photographer originally from Chicago now based in Los Angeles. Susan is represented in galleries across the world, widely published and has also written for several photography magazines, including a monthly column for Black and White Magazine (UK). Burnstine was nominated for the 2009 Santa Fe Prize for Photography and winner of B&W Magazine's 2008 Portfolio Spotlight Award.

Susan's first monograph, Within Shadows, has been published by CHARTA Editions and was released in Europe at the The Venice Biennale in June 2011. Additionally, Within Shadows, earned the Gold award for PX3 Prix De La Photographie Paris in the Professional Fine Art Books category and a Bronze overall.

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MICHAEL CROUSER
Sin Tiempo


(Boy and Rake, Madrid, Spain, 1990 - Michael Crouser)

Michael Crouser gives us the first read for his photography, the literal rather than the symbolic aspects of this body of work.   He gives us the meaning of his work at its most basic level.  Here is how he describes it:

“In 1986, after college, while traveling through Europe, I made a photograph of a woman selling her wares in the bookstalls near the river Seine. I made the picture quickly, and didn't give it much thought thereafter until I returned home to process my film. Upon seeing the negative, and the subsequent print, I noticed something striking about the image.  There was no evidence of popular culture in the photograph. No modern adverting typography, fashion, none of the latest automobiles or hairstyles.  There was nothing in the image that fixes the image in time. Thus, the image exists, for me, outside of time. It was the beginning of a realization that I am drawn to this aesthetic... chance vignettes, the crossing of certain faces, buildings, clothing, and light, that offer a scene that I think of as "sin tiempo"...Spanish for "without time”.

“Around the same time I discovered the bullfights in Spain, and made another image that reinforced the burgeoning attraction to the "sin tiempo" concept. It was a young groundskeeper simply considering his rake. His face, his clothing, the entire scene exists in space; however, outside of the influence of that current time in culture; absent of cues that fix dates, the era in which the image was shot, that moment in time.  I made an entire book on the corrida de toros (LOS TOROS), with that phenomenon and focus in mind, the absence of current references that create a vintage for the photograph. In the years since I have remained drawn to such scenes and to the making of such imagery.”

“There are certain elements I won't include in one of the images from Sin Tiempo; nevertheless, new challenges present themselves as I seize new opportunities to add to this work. These challenges are opportunities that allow the series to live and breathe and grow, so that with each new image I capture and create a new flavor and a new voice for the work.  The prints in this series are the result of an unremitting aesthetic fascination with this theme and an uninterrupted photographic education.”

“All of my photographs are shot on Tri-X film and printed as toned silver gelatin prints in a traditional darkroom. I tell my students that "how you speak is as important as what you say", and for me that means working in a tactile and traditional way. I believe that process is vastly important if one considers photography to be a personal expression, as I do. The photographs of my own that make me the happiest also feel like the best reflections of myself. They feel like extensions of myself.”

Michael Crouser was born in 1962 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was graduated from Saint John's University (Collegville, MN) in 1985. Michael began making photographs in earnest at the age of fourteen. Crouser's first monograph, Los Toros (Twin Palms Publishers 2007) was awarded first prize in the Fine Art Book category at 2008 International Photography Awards. His work can be found in the permanent collections of The Minneapolis Institute of Arts and The Museum of Fine Art, Houston. He has taught at The International Center of Photography in New York, The Mpls Photo Center and The Santa Fe Photographic Workshops.  Michael Crouser’s work has been exhibited throughout the US and Europe. When not on the road, he divides his time between his hometown of Minneapolis and where he now lives, Brooklyn, New York.

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DOUGLAS ETHRIDGE
A Cycle of Seasons
 

(Bamboo Moon-27 Mornings in Winter - Douglas Ethridge)


According to Bruce Jensen, editor of LensWork, Doug Ethridge “is blazing a trail”.  Doug is trained as both an excellent still photographer and a superb videographer.  Hence, it isn’t surprising that Doug would venture new ground and incorporate the two mediums.  As one looks at Doug’s video sequences, one can see the strength of his eye as a still photographer.  The images that begin sequences in the short films are that of the eye of a still photographer’s. The scenes then dissolve into sensitive fluid dream-like films that portray artistically the cycle of the four seasons.

A Cycle of Seasons is an installation of four short films and accompanying mixed-media prints that document four seasons near the artist’s home in rural Washington State. 27 Mornings In Winter is a month-long diary of simple observations along an 8-mile stretch of road. Cause and Effect celebrates the complex interplay between sky and water as spring storms blow in from across the Pacific. Pursuit of the Elusive Lumen explores the unique quality of summer light in the Northwest. The Season of the Loon is a reflective, many-textured fall meditation on hidden locations in remote coastal Washington.

“I have never considered myself a ‘nature photographer’ in the traditional sense of waiting for exactly the perfect moment when lighting and composition come together for one single image. I’m much more inclined to look for patterns and stories so as to document how things evolve and move. I like to compare and contrast, and to integrate music and sound into the overall experience for the viewer. The ability to utilize HD video as an acquisition tool and then create short films as well as prints in a variety of media fits my natural inclination as a storyteller. I am lucky to live in a place with distinct seasons and where the weather and tidal shifts constantly deliver an amazing array of visual opportunities every single day.”

“A Cycle of Seasons is a return to my roots….. I have always looked to the forest with comfort and ease as a place of wonder, a place of solace, a place of unending beauty on scales both grand and small.  In a very real sense, these forests and remote shorelines are the cathedrals of my spirit, holy in every sense of the word.  I hope the viewers of this installation carry away with them something of the peace and wonder that I find so inspiring….”

Douglas Ethridge is a writer, a video producer, and fine art photographer.  Douglas’s roots are in the Northwest, where he attended Reed College and the University of Washington in Seattle. His first creative efforts centered around music where he learned classical music and jazz. When Douglas moved on from music, he picked up a camera and after a trip to Kyoto, he found himself teaching photography and working for a small production company as a photographer and writer. After a few years, he started his own production company that became very successful. By 2000, he went back to making fine art photography. Douglas has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the U.S. and in Europe and he exhibited "Selective Memories" at the Lishui International Photo Festival in China in 2009. His work has been published in numerous magazines including LensWork, Camera Arts, COLOR, Hasselblad, B&W Magazine, B&W UK, and Chinese Photographer. He and his wife live on the shores of Hood Canal in Washington State.

HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGES AND DOUGLAS ETHRIDGE PRESS DVD AVAILABLE ON REQUEST

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CONTACT INFORMATION FOR SUSAN BURNSTINE
Email: susan@susanburnstine.com
Phone: 213-712-1585

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR MICHAEL CROUSER
Email: mc@michaelcrouser.com
Phone: 646-369-9021

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR DOUGLAS ETHRIDGE
Email: doug@douglasethridge.com
Phone: 206-755-1240

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY, JENNIFER SCHLESINGER-HANSON
Email: director@vervegallery.com  
Phone: 505-982-5009