ARTIST BREAKDOWN P.VII: UnBound11!
UnBound11!
ANNUAL JURIED + INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION
July 1 - August 6, 2022
Follow along over the next few weeks as we spotlight works currently on view at Candela Gallery. This summer group exhibition is our annual open call and is dedicated to featuring a wide range of photographic artworks, fine art photography, and artist books. We are proud of UnBound's mission to generate opportunities and exposure beyond the traditional group or juried show by providing a collection opportunity for artists. All funds raised throughout the show, help us reach our 2022 goal of 10k to support participating artists by acquiring work into the Candela Collection, which will one day be donated to an institution. Visit our shop to give, purchase the exhibition catalog, and/or snag some Candela merch. 100% of the proceeds raised will go towards supporting participating artists.
BRYAN PARNHAM
Another Head, 2020. Etched and Painted Steel, 11 x 15 inches. Unique. $1000
The pieces I am presenting to Candela and UnBound11! are photographs processed through a nontraditional and cross-disciplinary set of techniques. Beginning as traditional film, negatives are digitized and processed to be made into photopolymer resists. These resists allow me to etch images into the surface of steel plates, essentially embedding the photos into physical material. From there I have the freedom to cut, alter, and use chemicals and pigments on these plates to make painting-like wall panels.
The shallow relief of the etching holds paint, while paint on the original surface is able to be sanded away. Anything black in color is exposed steel that has been treated with a darkening patina. Any white or colored areas are where paint remains.
These works were made in Italy, where I was living and worked at the time.
TONI PEPE
Mothercraft, 2021. Double Folding Broadsheet on Newspaper, 11 x 15 inches. Open Edition
Mothercraft is an ongoing body of work that uses press photographs culled from flea markets and eBay to reconsider 20th-century depictions of mothers in the US media. Typed and handwritten text, along with date stamps, creased edges, and stains layer the backs of the photographs. These images are time capsules, showing us the event pictured, but also the frame through which they were received. The images I have collected illustrate movement, both socially and politically as records of the shifting identity of motherhood and women’s liberation, but also durationally as physical images that were held, touched, and eventually abandoned. What becomes of a history that was never intended to be kept, but, because of our ever-connected digital lives, is found again?
Each photograph in Mothercraft is backlit as I rephotograph it. The resulting image simultaneously reveals both the front and back of the print. With a sharp focus on the text, the image is allowed to fall further into obscurity, blurred and layered with captions and marks. The dynamic push and pull between the personal and the political are reflected in the fragmented captions, which often slip past their descriptive roles into the more dogmatic territory. Offering up information ranging from the objective, such as age and location, to the more partial and idiosyncratic details tied to tradition and duty. These images provide a glimpse into the unstable nature of truth and the complex relationship between image and word.
MARK PETERMAN
The intricate play between perception and reality is the core of my work as a visual storyteller. I construct fictional narratives inspired from cinematic and literary influences that utilize intrigue and the mystery of the unknown as key elements. My work examines how change, memory, and the passage of time affect the human experience.
Growing Flowers in the Shadows, 2021. Archival Pigment Print, 20 x 30 inches. Edition 1 of 15$1300
I create scenes where the viewer is confronted with a decision making moment. The clues that I present in my images are intended to be like a detective story where the reader feels compelled to turn the next page.
I beg the viewer to feel the mist in the air, smell the rain and sense the excitement before embarking on an adventure that they are unsure of where it may end. The work is made to evoke a response where the viewer is compelled to know more about what is happening and even question everything.
My work involves a multi-tiered creative process that includes a crafted narrative, built environments and photographs that serve as the final document of the work.
I work to find storytelling moments that I can build a scene from. It's a similar process to creating the elements of a short story or screenplay. While these story elements don't always make their way into the finished work in text form, they always impact the final sequence of the narrative.
The pieces are all considered miniature, built at 1/18 scale size. I began building scale models a few years ago as an experiment to see if I could create small scenes that I couldn't create at full scale. Most of the works I make are constructed from paper material such as cardboard or balsa wood. Once the basic structure is completed, I add texturing elements and some printed visuals. The finished models contain very intricate details.
The scene is then assembled and photographed. I utilize continuous lighting (as in filmmaking) and often use elements such as fog or mist to accentuate the atmosphere.
The final part of the work is the finished photo. I then sequence the series of finished photographs. The nuances of the story are told within the sequence where one image relies upon the next to build momentum.
My most recent work called Constructed Realities is a study in perception of reality. The series is made up of fictional scenes, drawn from cinematic and literary influences, built with 1/18 scale size sets and props.
Each scene is a story within itself but part of a larger journey through an interior landscape sourcing fragments of memory and dream. The scenes contain an element of mystery and a general sense of unease.
As the series progresses, questions are meant to arise for the viewer as the scale is not revealed but only hinted at. There are times the 4th wall appears to break but the hidden hand is never fully revealed. The delicate play between perception and reality is the core of this work.
TERRY RATZLAFF
The Watcher, 2019. Case Bound Accordion Fold with Hand Sewn Signatures within Slipcase, 118pgs 5.75 x 8.75 inches. Edition of 11 + 2AP. $850
Craig has been watching trains from the parking lot of The Old Mill since 1983. He watches trains obsessively, once without missing a day for eleven years and six days. The physical act of clocking in for eleven years and six days can be seen as a negative act since that which repeats does so through either a natural inadequacy attributed to it or by not comprehending, not remembering, or not recognizing.
To Craig, trains dictate the passage of time like the hands of a clock. Over time, the act of seeing transforms into a structural mechanism, re-integrating thought and action. Meaning is found in the experience of seeing and is represented through undeciphered notation. Over time, the notations translate into an analytic structure where they accumulate serially and chronologically. Within the annotations are timestamps, serial numbers, direction and destinations, categories of cargo, and the number of cargo within the train. These annotations represent control over what is seen and become the direct physical object of Craig’s obsession with time.
Photographically, I employ a similar approach, one that mirrors Craig’s. Through systematic repetition, I construct a ritualistic method for making photographs of Craig watching trains. Over time, I become obsessive; I take on qualities of a mechanized accumulator compiling a cache of images that appear the same, but because time is always moving forward, every image is different.
In 2017 Craig suffered a stroke. As a result, there are gaps, blank lines, and scratch marks visible within his notes. I also encountered errors that caused deviations in my surveillance. The anomalies in my process appear in the form of shutter failures—an in-camera technical failure that randomly occurred, and mirrored Craig’s errors. The result is an abstract fragment of an image, representing a momentary lapse of reason or a lack of consciousness. I speculate that Craig’s stroke affects his ability to recollect his past and that his ‘forgetting’ transforms his existence into a perpetual unrolling of the present, where here comes a train represents a renewed moment––full of beauty and wonder––caught in a closed referential loop exempt from the passing of time.
BEATRIX REINHARDT
Ertüchtigung series - Chapter IV: Kumbh Mela. Archival Pigment Print, 500 x 4.6 inches in 9 x 8.5 x 7 Wooden Box. Edition 3 of 6. $3100
“Kumbha Mela” investigates bathers going to and coming from their holly dip during the early morning hours. The Kumbha Mela, during which Hindus gather to bathe in a sacred river, has been described as the greatest pilgrimage in the world.
