© Liz McBurney
Still-life photographer Liz McBurney‘s whimsical series of images featuring pieces of processed meat was “inspired by the patterns and textures in processed meat and how similar it is becoming to man-made fabrics,” she says. The work began as a personal project, then led to an assignment from the weekend edition of The Guardian in June to shoot photographs for an article about the race among scientists to produce artificial meat in the laboratory.
“The back of an elephant is the best way to get close to tigers, rhinoceros, and other animals.” © Joan Myers
The images in Joan Myers’s new book, The Jungle at the Door, were inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s jungle stories, which the photographer read as a child. However, the magnificent animals featured in the book are threatened with extinction, hunted by poachers eager for their skins, teeth and claws. And their habitat is shrinking in the face of increasing development. Myers says, “Seeing a tiger in the wild is a rare and special gift. I fear that, with their numbers steadily decreasing, it is unlikely that my grandchildren will have the opportunity I had to see a tiger in Kipling’s forest. And as we lose these wild animals and wild places, we lose a primitive and mysterious wildness that has long been part of our human psyche.”
Damian Heinisch was one of 20 photographers invited by the Norwegian Association of the Blind and Partially Sighted to interpret visual defects for a traveling exhibition. Photographing glass houses from inside and out, Heinisch created a series representing Diabetes Retinopati, a condition that leaves blind spots on the retina of the eye. The brain effectively fills in the blind spots by interpolating the visible scene.
“I found that fascinating since I saw parallels to digital work in photo post-production,” Heinisch says. “People with eye diseases can easily get into [socially] difficult situations and be misunderstood” because they often seem to be overlooking details, or looking in the wrong direction. “This can lead to tension between [people] in situations or conversations,” Heinisch notes.
“I tried to reflect that tension using a glass house as a symbol: the perspective out of the glass house represents the viewpoint of someone with an eye defect, while a person with healthy eyes looks into the glass house and sees a mystical dark room with unidentified objects.
“The images deceive the viewer in many ways. What seems to be manipulated turns out to be authentic and the other way around. Observing the images puts you into the position of having a visual problem.”
Heinisch is based in Oslo. More of his work can be seen at damianheinisch.org
“The Crown,” from the series “Other Stories I,” 2009-2011. © Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira
En Foco, in collaboration with BRIC Arts | Media | Bklyn, presents the exhibition “En Foco: New Works/Crossing Boundaries.” Curated by Elizabeth Ferrer, BRIC’s director of contemporary art, this exhibition highlights the work of the seven artists who have received En Foco’s prestigious New Works Photography Fellowship, an annual juried award program that fosters the creation of new work: Don Gregorio Antón, Karen Miranda-Rivadeneira, Charlie Grosso, Colette Fu, Jaishiri Abichandani, Brenda Perry and Wendel A. White.
This exhibition focuses on photographers who have used the award to create bodies of work that move beyond the boundaries of conventional forms of the photographic medium, and extend their artistic practice. The opening reception will take place Wednesday, January 9, from 7 to 9 pm, at BRIC Rotunda Gallery, 33 Clinton Street, Brooklyn Heights, and the show will be on view through February 23, 2013. (more…)
© Beckwith/Fisher
The latest exhibition at Los Angeles’s Annenberg Space for Photography presents the work of several photographers who have depicted indigenous cultures throughout the world, from Tibet to Borneo to South Dakota. Called “No Strangers: Ancient Wisdom in a Modern World,” the group exhibition is guest curated by Wade Davis, an anthropologist, author and photographer whose work is also included in the show.
Other photographers featured in the exhibition, which is open through February 24, 2013, include Carol Beckwith & Angela Fisher, Chris Johns, Lynn Johnson, Steve McCurry, Randy Olson, Chris Rainier and Hamid Sardar. Images from several other photographers are also part of the show, as is an original, short documentary about the work of the featured photographers. Several lectures featuring exhibited photographers are also taking place throughout the run of the show.For those who can’t make it to the exhibition, the Annenberg Space has also produced a catalogue.
