JOHN CHIARA featured on LENSCRATCH

 

 

Read original post @ LENSCRATCH

 

John Chiara is opening an exhibition, John Chiara: Los Angeles, at the well regarded Rose Gallery in Los Angeles from March 23rd through May 11, 2013 featuring unique Ilfochrome prints. A San Francisco-based artist, John pushes the boundaries of the photographic medium through his choice of process and the mastery of its possibilities. His  giant cameras, which he designed and built himself, are transported to locations on a flatbed trailer to produce one-of-a-kind large-scale prints. 

 

 

The design of the cameras, which is much like daguerreotype box cameras, allows the artist to simultaneously shoot and perform his darkroom work while images are recorded directly onto oversized photosensitive paper (not film). This process, which John first discovered as a student in 1999, invites anomalies in his final prints and adds to the mystery and lyricism of his photographs.

 

John received a B.F.A. in photography from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and an M.F.A. in photography from the California College of the arts in 2004.  In 2011 the Pilara Foundation commissioned the artist’s Bridge Project for their permanent collection and it was included in the exhibition “HERE” at Pier 24 Photography.  He has been included in group and solo exhibitions nationally and abroad.  

John's latest series of photographs is focused entirely on the city of Los Angeles.  Though L.A. is one of the most photographed cities on the globe  - a city built on image -  and John’s depictions of it are unexpected.  His Los Angeles is neither idyllic nor sprawling urban hell.  It is not a "city of glamour nor the spectacle of exploitation that it is often deemed to be".  His interest lies with the psychological underpinnings of the city’s development and the subtle ways these are revealed in the shifting landscape. 

All Images courtesy, the artist, Thomas Von Lintel Gallery, New York and ROSEGALLERY, Santa Monica

John Chiara debuts unique Ilfochrome prints at ROSEGALLERY

 

John Chiara, Agua Dulce at Route 14. Image courtesy, the artist,

Thomas Von Lintel Gallery, New York and ROSEGALLERY, Santa Monica.

SANTA MONICA, CA.- ROSEGALLERY announces the international debut of John Chiara: Los Angeles. Unique Ilfochrome prints are on view from 23 March through 11 May, 2013. 

San Francisco-based artist John Chiara pushes the boundaries of the photographic medium through his choice of process and the mastery of its possibilities. His approach is distinguished by its incredible physicality and recalls the early days of the medium when artists dealt with heavy, awkward equipment and endured long exposure and development times. Chiara’s giant cameras, which he designed and built himself, are transported to locations on a flatbed trailer to produce one-of-a-kind large-scale prints. The design of the cameras, which is much like daguerreotype box cameras, allows the artist to simultaneously shoot and perform his darkroom work while images are recorded directly onto oversized photosensitive paper (not film). This process, which Chiara first discovered as a student in 1999, invites anomalies in his final prints and adds to the mystery and lyricism of his pictures. 

Until recently the artist has worked almost exclusively in the Bay Area. This Spring ROSEGALLERY presents for the first time, Chiara’s latest series of photographs, focused entirely on the city of Los Angeles. Though L.A. is one of the most habitually photographed cities on the globe - a city built on image - Chiara’s depictions of it defy precedent and expectation. His Los Angeles is neither idyllic rural Eden nor sprawling urban hell. It is not the mythic city of glamour nor the spectacle of exploitation that it is often deemed to be. Instead, Chiara has honed in on delicate transformations in the environment, both natural and man-made. His interest lies with the psychological underpinnings of the city’s development and the subtle ways these are revealed in the shifting landscape. His Los Angeles images are powerfully direct: a desert fan palm growing implausibly through fortified concrete; the reflection of power lines in the blazing sun; a hillside exploding with scorched earth; the shimmering façade of the Department of Water and Power. But the subversive and idiosyncratic nature of Chiara’s uncommon technique makes for images that transcend conventional depictions of place and transforms familiar landscapes into hypnotic visual passages through the ordinary world. 

John Chiara earned a B.F.A. in photography from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and an M.F.A. in photography from the California College of the arts in 2004. In 2011 the Pilara Foundation commissioned the artist’s Bridge Project for their permanent collection and it was included in the exhibition “HERE” at Pier 24 Photography. He has been included in group and solo exhibitions nationally and abroad. This will be the artist’s first solo show at ROSEGALLERY.

Read more @ ArtDaily

JOHN CHIARA | Featured on Huffington Post

John Chiara: Los Angeles | San Francisco-based artist John Chiara pushes the boundaries of the photographic medium through his choice of process and the mastery of its possibilities. His approach is distinguished by its incredible physicality and recalls the early days of the medium when artists dealt with heavy, awkward equipment and endured long exposure and development times. Chiara's giant cameras, which he designed and built himself, are transported to locations on a flatbed trailer to produce one-of-a-kind large-scale prints. The design of the cameras, which is much like daguerreotype box cameras, allows the artist to simultaneously shoot and perform his darkroom work while images are recorded directly onto oversized photosensitive paper (not film). This process, which Chiara first discovered as a student in 1999, invites anomalies in his final prints and adds to the mystery and lyricism of his pictures.

Chiara's latest series of photographs, focused entirely on the city of Los Angeles. Though L.A. is one of the most habitually photographed cities on the globe - a city built on image - Chiara's depictions of it defy precedent and expectation. His Los Angeles is neither idyllic rural Eden nor sprawling urban hell. It is not the mythic city of glamour nor the spectacle of exploitation that it is often deemed to be. Instead, Chiara has honed in on delicate transformations in the environment, both natural and man-made. His interest lies with the psychological underpinnings of the city's development and the subtle ways these are revealed in the shifting landscape.

View original post @ Huffington Post 

JOHN CHIARA | Featured in Artweek L.A.

Will Rogers at Westside, from the Los Angeles project, 2012, Image 33.5 x 28 inches/Frame 41 x 36 inches, Image on Ilfochrome paper, unique photograph. From the collection of the artist and ROSEGALLERY.

San Francisco-based artist John Chiara pushes the boundaries of the photographic medium through his choice of process and the mastery of its possibilities. Opens March 23 at RoseGallery. 

Chiara’s approach is distinguished by its incredible physicality and recalls the early days of the medium when artists dealt with heavy, awkward equipment and endured long exposure and development times. His giant cameras, which he designed and built himself, are transported to locations on a flatbed trailer to produce one-of-a-kind large-scale prints.  The design of the cameras, which is much like daguerreotype box cameras, allows the artist to simultaneously shoot and perform his darkroom work while images are recorded directly onto oversized photosensitive paper (not film). This process, which Chiara first discovered as a student in 1999, invites anomalies in his final prints and adds to the mystery and lyricism of his pictures.

Until recently the artist has worked almost exclusively in the Bay Area. This Spring ROSEGALLERY is pleased to present for the first time, Chiara’s latest series of photographs, focused entirely on the city of Los Angeles. Though L.A. is one of the most habitually photographed cities on the globe - a city built on image - Chiara’s depictions of it defy precedent and expectation. His Los Angeles is neither idyllic rural Eden nor sprawling urban hell. It is not the mythic city of glamour nor the spectacle of exploitation that it is often deemed to be. Instead, Chiara has honed in on delicate transformations in the environment, both natural and man-made.  His interest lies with the psychological underpinnings of the city’s development and the subtle ways these are revealed in the shifting landscape. His Los Angeles images are powerfully direct:  a desert fan palm growing implausibly through fortified concrete; the reflection of power lines in the blazing sun; a hillside exploding with scorched earth; the shimmering façade of the Department of Water and Power. But the subversive and idiosyncratic nature of Chiara’s uncommon technique makes for images that transcend conventional depictions of place and transforms familiar landscapes into hypnotic visual passages through the ordinary world.

John Chiara earned a B.F.A. in photography from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and an M.F.A. in photography from the California College of the arts in 2004. In 2011 the Pilara Foundation commissioned the artist’s Bridge Project for their permanent collection and it was included in the exhibition “HERE” at Pier 24 Photography. He has been included in group and solo exhibitions nationally and abroad. This will be the artist’s first solo show at ROSEGALLERY

Angels Point at Stadium, from the Los Angeles project, 2012, Image 33.5 x 28 inches/Frame 41 x 36 inches, Image on Ilfochrome paper, unique photograph. From the collection of the artist and ROSEGALLERY.

View original post @ Artweek L.A.

VALERIE JAUDON | Art in America review

Valerie Jaudon: Glyph, 2012oil on canvas
54 inches square

By Carol Diehl
3/11/13

New York In 1976, seven years out of art school and already critically recognized, Valerie Jaudon made a painting that established the technique and the focused visual system she has rigorously mined ever since. It would be difficult to name another painter whose developmental pace has been as excruciatingly incremental, yet there is a madness to her method; never stagnant, Jaudon’s signature approach continues to offer constant possibility, with the paintings in this recent exhibition being her best yet.

Jaudon usually employs just two or three unmodulated colors to create intricate configurations of wide, interwoven lines. Building up her surfaces with thick paint in short brushstrokes, she imposes these designs on natural or painted linen with such crisp precision that they appear almost carved. Much is made of her association with the short-lived but influential Pattern and Decoration movement of the ’70s, yet ironically the ideas that the group was reacting against—those of Minimalism and Conceptualism—are clearly manifested in her paintings. More than anything, her works suggest Frank Stella’s iconic black paintings taken to a convoluted extreme, especially when one notices the fine, seemingly incised outlines of her curving bands, which, like Stella’s “pinstripes,” are not painted but are glimpses of the raw support. Conceptualism’s emphasis on systems and repetition is as much a part of Jaudon’s work as it is of Sol LeWitt’s, while her disciplined practice, with its barely measurable progress, is reminiscent of the way the late German Conceptualist Hanne Darboven used her “daily arithmetic” to try to bring order to an unruly world.

Jaudon’s latest work, however, shows an appreciable shift. Previously, her imagery could be easily traced to precedents such as Gothic stonework, Celtic interlace, Islamic ornament and calligraphy, all of which employ repetition, intertwined or radiating structures, and rhythmic patterns. While these evocations are still evident in the paintings on view (all 2011 or 2012), they are now tightly woven into a language that is more specific to Jaudon, arising from her recent determination to compose her motifs with a single, continuous band. This has the effect of simultaneously unifying and activating the images, as well as making them more labyrinthine and serpentine, like an elaborately stylized scribble.

Circa is comprised of a single ribbon of white whose complex journey from one side of the canvas to the other fills the surface to its edges with an eye-boggling arabesque of razor-sharp corners, sweeping arcs, circles, half moons, zigzags, folds and dagger-sharp points, while the negative space of natural linen contributes its own fractal-like dance. In Essay and Glyph, the tangles of meandering white bands are clustered together in 3-by-3 arrangements of blocks. Even though the compositions offer the grid’s promise of comforting predictability, each of their columns is made up of a single, winding line, imbuing the works with an exciting new energy.

With their ability to engage the eye in movement, Jaudon’s paintings mimic the spontaneous and improvisational feel of Abstract Expressionism, while remaining steadfastly hard-edged and geometric. Whether the artist is attempting to bring order to chaos or chaos to order cannot be determined, but whatever she is doing, it works.

Read more @ Art in America

Success for Melbourne's Tolarno Galleries at Art13 London

The Tolarno Galleries stand at Art13 London

by Nicholas Forrest 

Melbourne’s Tolarno Galleries were the only Australian gallery to exhibit at this year’s Art13 London, the first edition of the new art fair for modern and contemporary art. Held from 1-3 March, the fair featured 129 leading galleries from 30 different countries showing thousands of artworks, including painting, sculpture, photography, prints and editions or multimedia.

Tolarno Galleries presented an “all Australian” exhibition which attracted plenty of attention for the artists whose work Tolarno exhibited including Patricia Piccinini, Tim Maguire, Bill Henson, Brook Andrew, Rosemary Laing, Martin Bell, and Anastasia Klose.

According to the Director of Tolarno Galleries, Jan Minchin,“Patricia Piccinini's small sculpture ‘Prone’ and Tim Maguire's large and luminous light box, ‘King Lake,’ have drawn people into our stand and had enormous impact. But it's fair to say that all the works we have brought are being looked at and considered.”

Read more @ BlouinArtInfo

DANA MELAMED | Duality of Matter — Opening Photos