EXHIBITION DETAILS
Art in Nature
Oct 28 - Nov 26, 2011
Public / Artists’ Reception: Nov 4 from 6-9pm
JUROR:
Nick Brandt: Brandt’s images have been described as ”...an ambitious and ongoing photographic project to memorialize the vanishing natural grandeur of East Africa. Brandt’s monochrome widescreen panoramas of animals and landscapes capture an epic vision of Africa that has not been seen before. His iconic portraits of its majestic animals are filled with an empathy usually reserved for human subjects.”
In 2000, he set upon a three part project that he calls “an elegy to a world that is tragically vanishing.” 90 photographs from this decade long project have been condensed into two recent publications On This Earth and A Shadow Falls. Further solidifying his commitment to the African wilderness, Brandt recently established the remarkable Big Life Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conser vation of Africa’s wildlife and ecosystems.
Brandt has had multiple solo exhibitions worldwide, including in New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Sydney, Munich, Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris.
JURORS STATEMENT
Of course, man has seen art in nature from the very beginning. You could argue that with the earliest cave paintings, it was his very first subject matter. Fortunately, essentially, many of us have been obsessed ever since. I say fortunately, because in a modern world increasingly desensitized to the natural world, where fewer and fewer people, and most depressingly the young, have access to or inclination to explore the natural world, it becomes all the more important that we try and capture all facets of it for the rest of the world to see.
I would like to think that my personal favorite photo, and thus the one I selected as Juror's Choice, Raven on a Table by Ann George, proves that you don’t need access to the exotic fauna of Africa or the epic panoramas of the Antarctic to create an image of beauty and distinction featuring the natural world. This should hopefully be of encouragement to all of us, that all we need to do is look with a fresh and open eye at the world immediately around us. (It sure as hell is less expensive as well.)
Nick Brandt
