HAND/EYE
October 26 - December 31, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, October 26, 5-7 pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, October 27, 2-3 pm
What/ Who: form & concept presents Hand/Eye, an exhibition of eleven artists from across the United States who merge photography and craft mediums. The artworks in the show incorporate a wide array of materials—fiber, cast glass, micaceous clay, human hair—that shatter the picture plane and push photographic imagery into the real world.
When: The Hand/Eye group exhibition debuts Friday, October 26 from 5 to 7 pm and runs through December 31, 2018. The opening reception coincides with the Last Friday Art Walk in the Santa Fe Railyard Arts District. A number of the featured artists will conduct a gallery talk on Saturday, October 27 from 2 to 3 pm.
ARMED WITH THREAD, FELT, CERAMIC AND GLASS, ARTISTS PULL PHOTOGRAPHY INTO A NEW DIMENSION
Santa Fe, NM—Whether they’re gelatin silver prints or daguerreotypes, there’s one thing that most all photographs have in common: they’re flat. For a new group exhibition at form & concept, eleven artists from across the United States shatter this convention by applying craft media to photography—and vice versa. Hand/Eye presents images with the texture and volume of sculptures, vaulting a medium that’s often trapped behind glass into the viewer’s sphere. “Call it super-alternative process photography,” says form & concept Gallery Director and Hand/Eye curator Frank Rose. The exhibition opens Friday, October 26 from 5 to 7 pm, followed by an artist talk with a number of the featured artists on Saturday, October 27 from 2 to 3 pm.
“form & concept has never done a photography show, because we’re so focused on the collision of art, craft and design mediums in contemporary art,” says Rose, who curated Hand/Eye over a period of eight months. “Of course, photographers are a big part of that conversation. The lines are blurring in every corner of the art world.” The group exhibition, which will fill form & concept’s second-floor galleries, represents a homecoming of sorts for Rose. He holds a degree in Photography and Digital Media from the University of Houston, and served as press coordinator for Houston’s FotoFest, the largest and longest-running photography festival in the United States.
“I wanted to explore how contemporary photography has changed since I was immersed in it, and what I found amazed me. For these artists, a camera is just one of many tools they’re using to create impactful work,” Rose says. The artworks that appear in Hand/Eye are staggering in their variety. Photographs from Elizabeth Claffey’s Matrilinear series show ghostly white garments floating through the air, stirring up ideas of embodied memory and its relationship to personal, familial, and cultural identity. Gary Goldberg works with a Oaxacan fiber art guild to translate imagery from tightly cropped digital photographs into felted tapestries. Josh Herman creates cast glass cameras that reflect on the history of photography by conducting the form’s true medium: light. Other materials that appear in Hand/Eye include micaceous clay, human hair, and many varieties of fiber.
Featured Artists: Ginger Owen, Cathryn Amidei, Gary Goldberg, Elizabeth Claffey, Jodi Colella, Mira Burack, Ruben Olguin, Jayoung Yoon, Jacquelyn Royal, David Samuel Stern, Emily Margarit Mason
