Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Don Merrill

March 5, 2008 (760) 346-7900

E y e s O n T h e D e s e r t

Contemporary Desert Landscape Photography features seven lensmen

with distinctive perspectives on the landscape and how we interact with it

Schedule:

March 20 — Group show opens

April 3 — Artist reception (during Art Walk El Paseo)

April 17 — Douglas Fogelson (solo photography exhibition and museum fundraiser)

Overview:

During the past 20 years, photography has gained a more prominent role in documenting the changing landscape. As desert communities become aware of population growth, accompanied by housing development and new commercial land use, a sense of urgency prevails among photographers to address the impact of these changes.

Edenhurst Gallery — which, since 1985, has specialized in early California Impressionism — continues its bold exploration of contemporary artists who focus on the state’s landscapes with the March 20 opening of Contemporary Desert Landscape Photography. The group show features seven established and emerging lensmen, include John Divola, whose solo debut at Edenhurst last year followed his selection to the historic show of Los Angeles artists at Centre Pompidou in Paris and an installation of 14 Isolated Houses photographs at The Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

The exhibition also features Tom Brewster, Harris Fogel, Douglas Fogelson, Chari Godakanda, Kirk Owens, and Rick Szcezechowski. Each brings a distinctive perspective on the landscape and how we interact with it. They show the desert landscape in a way that few people will stop and see it on their own.

Fogelson will mount a solo show, opening with a reception on April 17, with 20 percent of sales proceeds being donated to the Contemporary Art Council of Palm Springs Art Museum.

Photographers:

Tom Brewster has said, “I listen with my eyes.” For 25 years, he has captured the world around him and shared it with the rest of us. Since moving to Palm Springs in 1977, Brewster asserted his passion and vision as landscape photographer for Palm Springs Life and many other magazines. His emphasis on fine art allowed him to explore landscapes of the Southwest, Ireland, Greece, and India.

John Divola’s photography reveals a spectrum of colorful to stark Southern California landscapes we often take for granted. Selected among 85 artists for Los Angeles 1955-1985: The Birth of An Artistic Capital, the blockbuster 2006 exhibition at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Divola will exhibit his photographs from his acclaimed Isolated Houses series. His work also appears in more than 30 important museum collections, including Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and The International Museum of Photography (George Eastman House) in New York.

Harris Fogel, associate professor of photography at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, exhibited his works at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw last November. His work utilizes various formats, including digital cameras, scanners, 8x10-inch view cameras, 35mm, medium format, and digital video, with an emphasis on fine art printing. He has an extensive background in digital imaging, criticism, photojournalism, and photo history. His work can be found in the collections of numerous museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; The National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; the International Center of Photography in New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France; and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Douglas Fogelson of Chicago concentrates on relationships with the natural and constructed world. A strong part of the intent is to comment on human and ecological mortality relative to the destruction of nature. As he looks at these relationships through the camera, many synergies emerge. Time becomes interconnected. Moments blend and develop into more transparent and complicated scenes. He manipulates the camera during the shooting process to create overlapping effect of his exposures; the images are not pieced together in digitally. The final Lambda C-prints range from 3 feet wide to larger than 20 feet wide. His photographs appear in the collections of The Getty Museum, Palm Springs Art Museum, Elmhurst Art Museum, and Walker Art Center.

Chari Godakanda is an emerging fine art landscape photographer who was born in Colombo on the island of Sri Lanka. His focus became wildlife photography. In 1996, he moved to California and settled in Palm Springs in 1996. An expert in digital imaging and active in commercial photography, Godakanda has focused his fine art on the rock formations in Joshua Tree National Park, the subject of the images he presents at Edenhurst Gallery.

Kirk H. Owens is known for his breathtaking landscape images that appear in can private and corporate collections throughout the United States and abroad. His photographs appear regularly in Palm Springs Life, as well as in Arizona Highways, Outdoor Photographer, Travel & Leisure Golf Magazine, and others.

Rick Szczechowski has created a collection of fine art of photographs using various techniques mastered by many processes and manipulations of cameras and dark room. He is particularly interested in the art of polymer photogravures, which combines photography with the intaglio printmaking technique. The dialog between light, ink, and paper has opened up a new world of tonal possibilities. Szczechowski’s atypical techniques symbolize a new atmosphere and mood that beckons spontaneity from his subjects. His use of light and shade transforms reality by means of the monochrome medium. The final print is a culmination of many layers enhancing the original scene.