Transforming Photography

The gallery’s inaugural exhibition, Transforming Photography, presents an inclusive selection of works that redefine the material nature of photography. At a time when the boundaries between artistic medias and traditionally held expectations of the nature of photography are in flux; Transforming Photography suggests alternatives to the commonplace manipulations offered through digital processes. The exhibition will feature visceral and process based photographic works by Isidro Blasco, Ben Dean, Mary Heebner, Gerald Incandela, George Legardy, Joni Sternbach, Joan Tanner, Ethan Turpin and Thomas Zika.

The exhibition also features the Los Angeles debut of Spanish Born; New York - based Isidro Blasco who combines architecture, photography and sculptural installations to explore vision and perception. In a similar manner, Joan Tanner mounts collaged celluloid transparencies on hand made light boxes fabricated from found objects re-approariated by the artist combining both photographic and sculptural processes.

Using the physical gestures of drawing, Gerald Incandela uses the chemistry of photography to refine photographic images beyond the camera. His works are held by the Getty Museum, and this exhibition will represent his debut in Los Angeles as well. In contrast, George Legrady and Ben Dean utilize distinct digital computational strategies to create viable photograph like images which are synthetic, constructed works. Their work map new, advanced approaches to digital photography within the context of the exhibition.

Other artists reinvent historic photographic processes and archive materials. Joni Sternbach, a Brooklyn based artist who is currently the subject of a solo exhibition organized by Phillip Prodger at the Peabody Essex Museum of Art, uses the pre-civil-war period photographic process of tintype (or wet plate process) to document though portraiture contemporary surf communities on both the East and West coasts. Ethan Turpin mines the historic images of vintage stereocards to create new digital composites that challenge cultural and economic presuppositions. His work employees the hand-held antique viewing devices to create the dimensional photographic effects characteristic that made stereocards a salon sensation in the early portion of the 20th century. Lastly, the German photographer, Thomas Zika suggests the creative opportunities presented by “found” photography in his lush and sensual Bathers project.