VERVE Gallery of Photography Presents
Brigitte Carnochan Cy DeCosse Joy Goldkind Jennifer Schlesinger
Caitlyn Soldan Henrieke Strecker Maggie Taylor Kamil Vojnar
Opening Reception: Friday, February 24, 2012, 5-7pm
Exhibition is on view through Saturday, April 14, 2012
Conversations with the artists: Saturday, February 25, 2012, 12:00pm
Location: VERVE Gallery of Photography
CONTACT INFORMATION FOR VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Jennifer Schlesinger, Director
219 E. Marcy Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 505-982-5009 Fax: 505-982-9111
VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY VERVE Gallery of Photography is pleased to present Do Process, a group exhibition of work by eight
VERVE Gallery artists. In this exhibition, each artist utilizes his or her own special technique to
produce photographic based artworks. Some of the images in the exhibition are made using
contemporary processes, while others use alternative processes. Still others are made using both
modern digital tools and old proven techniques. These techniques are characterized as “alternative
processes” to distinguish the final print from the more ubiquitous gelatin silver print or contemporary
digital print. The work in this exhibition ranges from 19th century print making practices, such as,
hand-painted Gelatin Silver prints, Gum Dichromate, Bromoil, Mordançage, Photogravure and
Albumen printing to more modern digitally composed and mixed media Photomontage prints. The
exhibition showcases the history of some of the photographic techniques used over the last three
centuries. In order to perfect and master these techniques, each of the artists demonstrates the virtues
of perseverance and a passion and dedication to the photographic medium. Moreover, each artist
has been open to hours of experimentation, and each is receptive to innovation. This exhibition is a
celebration of 21 century approaches to 19 and 20 century photographic processes. All the work in
the exhibition was produced especially for this show. The artists will share their formulas and
techniques with us on Saturday.
The public reception for this exhibition takes place on Friday, February 24, 2012 from 5 to 7pm.
There will be a conversation with the artists at VERVE Gallery on Saturday, February 25 beginning
at 12:00pm.
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The exhibition is on view through Saturday, April 14, 2012.
BRIGITTE CARNOCHAN
Brigitte Carnochan will be exhibiting hand-painted silver gelatin prints of nudes and still lifes. Brigitte
begins her process by using a medium or large format camera to produce negatives rich with
information. She then makes a black and white silver gelatin print with a matte finish. Finally, she
judiciously and artistically applies oil paints onto the dried print. Some of her nudes take an hour to
paint, whereas some of the still lifes can take up to as much as six hours to finish. Because each print
is hand painted, no two of Brigitte’s hand-painted photographs in any edition are identical.
Hand-coloring photographs, manually adding color to a black and white print, is almost as old as
photography itself. The announcement of the invention of the Daguerreotype in 1830 was
accompanied by an almost apologetic disappointment that there was an absence of color on the
print. Daguerre and his successors tried assiduously to find a way to fix an image with the “colors of
nature,” but without success. As early as 1841, a few of Fox Talbot’s assistants were experimenting by
applying watercolor, oils, pastels, dyes, or color pencils to the matte-surface paper of calotypes.
Quickly, hand-colored pictures became the norm for those wishing to have their photographic
portraits ‘touched up.’ This hand-coloring craft took great skill and because of demand, many portrait
painters of the time turned to becoming photographic print hand-colorists. You probably have
photographs of your ancestors from the early part of the 20 century that are hand colored.
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY Brigitte Carnochan’s hand-painted gelatin silver photographs are represented in museum, corporate
and private collections. Modernbook Editions published Carnochan’s hand-painted images, Bella
Figura: Painted Photographs, in 2006. A limited edition monograph, The Shining Path, was also
published in 2006 by 21st Publications. Carnochan was named a Hasselblad Master Photographer for
2003 and her work has been recently featured on covers of Camera Arts and Silvershotz and in Color,
Lenswork, Zoom, View Camera, Polaroid, Black and White, and Studija magazines. Three catalogs of
her previous work have been published. She teaches photography classes at Stanford University’s
Continuing Studies program.
CY DECOSSE
Cy DeCosse will be exhibiting still life platinum palladium and gum dichromate prints. In 2001, Cy
DeCosse, with Keith Taylor as printer, began the revival of the gum dichromate technique. In 1858,
John Pouncy, in England, made the first color gum dichromate images. This process is capable of
rendering painterly images with broad tones and little resolution of detail from photographic
negatives using light sensitive dichromates and color pigments. Traditionally, this is a multi-layered
printing process that makes full-color images; however, the prints can also be made from any one
single color.
Photographers began experimenting with Platinum in Germany in the 1830s. With a platinum print,
the light sensitive Platinum emulsion that makes the image is actually imbedded, soaked into the
paper, not on the paper’s surface, as is the case with gelatin silver prints. The imbedded Platinum
inks give the platinum print a sensation of depth and dimension. Platinum printing is a unique, handmade process. The photographer formulates the emulsion of Platinum and Palladium for each print so
as to produce the desired effect---a brown black, a rich warmer effect than the black blacks in a silver
gelatin print. Papers, often hand-made, are coated with the Platinum emulsion by hand. Weather
conditions, heat, humidity all affect the finished product. Thus, no two Platinum Palladium prints are
ever identical.
DeCosse’s work is in numerous public collections including the England Royal Trust and the
Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. His work has been exhibited widely in the U.S. and abroad. There
are four books containing Cy’s work. The first is a limited edition book published by The Journal of
Contemporary Photography: Volume IV, entitled: Gardens of DeCosse (2000). The book is devoted
exclusively to the work of the artist. The images in the book range from the quiet morning’s light
falling on freshly picked vegetables to the riotous energy of flowers in full bloom. The second is a
catalog for an exhibition held at the Accademia Delle Arti Del Disegno Firenze, Italy in October,
2001, entitled: Cy DeCosse: Play of the Light (2001). His third book is entitled Flowers and Food
(2009) and it contains DeCosse’s botanical photographs in Gum Dichromate & Platinum. Florence
by Cy DeCosse (2009) is a book of portraits that Cy dedicates to his muse, the city of Florence and its
people.
JOY GOLDKIND
Joy Goldkind’s Bromoil prints in this exhibition are images from her Adagio series. The images are
abstractions of dancers created by a double exposure and slow shutter speed so as to deliberately
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY capture the blur of moving figures. The silver gelatin prints are then converted using Joy’s Bromoil
technique. She also has her new work in this exhibition where she uses mirrors so as to create
images that distort the human figure. Once again, Joy uses the Bromoil process to alter the traditional
photograph and thus create a “unique painterly print.”
As the digital world advances and film options decline, Joy finds it necessary to combine the earlier
photographic processes with modern world technologies. She creates her negatives using a digital
camera and a computer. She then makes prints using a traditional darkroom to create a typical silver
gelatin print that she then converts to a Bromoil print. The Bromoil process was introduced in 1907
by E.J. Wall and eventually replaced the Gum Dichromate process. Once an enlargement is made on
silver gelatin bromide paper, it is then bleached in a solution of potassium bichromate to remove the
black silver image on the print. Then using special brushes, Joy applies the greasy inks to pigment the
gelatin surface of the print.
Joy Goldkind currently resides in St. James, NY. She graduated from the Fashion Institute of
Technology, NYC in 1963. She has exhibited in numerous venues across the country and
internationally including a solo exhibition at the Museo Nationale Della Fotographia in Italy, which
now holds a permanent collection of her work. Joy’s photographs have graced the covers of
international publications and magazines such as Silver Shotz and Eyemazing. Her work has also
been featured in B&W Magazine, Photolife, Zoom Magazine, Color and View Camera Magazine.
JENNIFER SCHLESINGER
Jennifer Schlesinger has spent the past year exploring and perfecting the hand-coated Albumen Paper
process. Jennifer’s work in this exhibition is from her new series, Here nor There. Her inspiration
comes from observing her young daughter’s innocence and imagination. Jennifer’s images are
metaphors for capturing the initial magical and mysterious moments of inspiration. The artist believes
that when adults learn to harness our youthful imagination, then we bring forth innovation and
progress to the larger world around us.
The recipe for Albumen prints is simple, using everyday egg whites—“Break the eggs into a cup,
carefully avoiding the mixture of yolk with the whites….”. Albumen is the sticky substance of egg
whites and is the emulsion that is used to coat the paper. Albumen is the perfect process for
Jennifer’s Here not There body of work. Albumen combines magical and scientific elements to
produce a photographic image and is a perfect example of progress through invention. It is difficult to
imagine the moment of inspiration where one of the greatest advancements in photography took
place. Chicken yard egg white emulsion with table salt and silver nitrate bound the photographic
chemicals to the paper effectively and cheaply. It was the first commercial process for producing
multiple high quality photographic prints from a single negative. It leveled the photography playing
field for the first time. It meant the medium was available for anyone to use; anyone could be a
photographer. Moreover, it meant that pictures (portraits) were, for the first time, available to persons
of ordinary means. Most of the photographs made in the 19 century were Albumen Prints. It
remained the most viable and popular printing process for about 40 years. Albumen-coated paper
was replaced by silver gelatin paper at the beginning of the 20 century.
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY Jennifer Schlesinger graduated from the College of Santa Fe in 1998 with a B.A. in Photography and
Journalism. Her work has been published online and in print in publications such as Black and White
Magazine U.S and UK, Diffusion Magazine and many others. Schlesinger is represented in public
collections, including the Huntington Botanical Art Collections (CA), The New Mexico Museum of
Art and the New Mexico History Museum / Palace of the Governors Photo Archives. She has received
several honors in recognition of her work including a Golden Light Award in Landscape Photography
from the Maine Photographic Workshops in 2005. In 2007 she was awarded the Center for
Contemporary Arts Photography Auction Award. Schlesinger is co-founder of finitefoto.com, a new
media collective that investigates and promotes the intersection of photography and culture in the
State of New Mexico.
CAITLYN SOLDAN
Caitlyn Soldan is VERVE Gallery’s Featured Online Artist, a category of gallery representation that
debuts emerging artists. VERVE offers emerging artists an online show of their work and framed
images in the gallery for the duration of the underlying exhibition. Caitlyn Soldan’s work is a series
entitled Thin Veils, using the Mordançage process. In the work, she takes self-portraits using a pinhole
camera. Caitlyn takes her cues from Victorian spirit photography - portraits with spirits. Thus, the
images in this exhibition are Caitlyn’s visual improvisations of ghosts, spirits, and hauntings. Caitlyn’s
work is ethereal, esoteric, and allegorical.
Mordançage is a 20th century process created by Jean-Pierre, which is based on a 19th century
process known as bleach-etch. Bleach-etch is a reversal process for film negatives. The process
involves stripping away the darkest parts of the emulsion of a silver gelatin print. This image
transformation creates a relief, or a raised area on the print. Water is used to float the delicate silver
emulsion on the image so as to rearrange it and dry it back down onto the print. The end result is a
one-of-a-kind and thus unique photographic image. The artist chose the Mordançage process for this
series because it enhances the themes of time, decay, and mortality in her work. The process also
gives the images mysterious and otherworldly qualities, separating them from reality.
Caitlyn Soldan was born in 1988 in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated from Savannah College of Art
and Design in June 2011 with a BFA in Photography. Her work explores themes of history, memory
and time. Caitlyn prefers working with film and alternative processes but also enjoys exploring the
possibilities of combining historical processes with new technology. Her work has been exhibited
throughout the United States and France. Caitlyn presently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
HENRIEKE STRECKER
Henrieke Strecker, new to VERVE as a represented artist, will be exhibiting Photogravures on
handmade paper as well as the Chine-collé process. Strecker’s images are of abstract yet familiar
forms. She creates her imagery using plants, trees, and landscapes, as well as animal and human
figures; the beauty that is her own backyard. Her hand-pulled original prints do not capture “an
isolated moment or paint a realistic picture like a report.” Rather, she gives “an account of small
movements and atmospheres”, and shares with us what she has experienced within that time.
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY Photogravures were invented in 1870s. A copper plate is coated with a light sensitive gelatin. The
coated copper plate is then put in contact with a positive photographic transparency and exposed to
light. The plate is washed to remove unexposed gelatin leaving a hardened gelatin negative. The
hardened gelatin negative that remains on the plate is then inked. The inked etched copper plate is
printed in the same way as an etching in a copper plate printing press.
Chine-collé is a special printmaking technique that allows an artist to use very delicate paper or linen
that allows finer detail to be pulled off the coated copper plate. The finer detailed paper or linen with
the image is then transferred or bonded to another surface, a heavier support not unlike a matte, to
which the finer paper or linen is attached. This technique allows the artist to print on a much more
delicate surface and also to provide a background color behind the image that is different from the
surrounding backing matte.
Henrieke Strecker was born in Freiburg, Germany. She spent her formative years at the foot of the
Black Forest of southwestern Germany. In 2008, she immigrated to the United States. She currently
lives and works in the White Mountains of New Hampshire where she is surrounded by abundant
wildlife and flora. She teaches photography at Plymouth State University. Strecker has an extensive
exhibition history showing her work in Europe and more recently in the United States. She lectures
and gives workshops in addition to teaching photography courses at Plymouth State.
MAGGIE TAYLOR
Maggie Taylor will be exhibiting her most recent work of surrealistic digital montages. Maggie
continues the use of animals, people and landscapes placed in the surreal, bizarre photo stages she
creates.
Since 1997, Maggie Taylor has created surrealistic imagery using computers, flatbed scanners and
small digital cameras. She sees the scanner as a type of light-sensitive device, not much different than
a digital camera. In both instances the scanner and camera capture a slice of time. In addition to
placing small objects directly on the scanner, the artist also scans daguerreotypes and tintypes that
she collects in antique shops and purchases online. The subjects in her images become the cast of
characters that shape the artist’s pictorial stage. Once Maggie has finished her creations, she prints
them in her studio on an inkjet printer. As is the case with all her creative work, Maggie runs through
many test prints, image revisions and adjustments before getting the results she wants.
Maggie Taylor received her BA degree in Philosophy from Yale University in 1983. Maggie’s MFA
degree in Photography is from the University of Florida. In 1996, after more than ten years as a still
life photographer, she began using the computer for image creations. Her work is featured in Adobe
Photoshop Master Class: Maggie Taylor’s Landscape of Dreams, published by Adobe Press in 2004;
Solutions Beginning with A, Modernbook Editions, Palo Alto, 2007; and Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland, Modernbook Editions, Palo Alto, 2008. Taylor’s has had one-person exhibitions
throughout the U.S and abroad. Maggie’s work can be found in numerous public and private
collections including The Art Museum, Princeton University; The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
University; Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; and
The Museum of Photography, Seoul, Korea. In 1996 and 2001, she received State of Florida
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY Individual Artist’s Fellowships. In 2004, she won the Santa Fe Center for Photography’s Project
Competition; in 2005, Maggie received the Ultimate Eye Foundation Grant. She lives in Gainesville,
Florida.
KAMIL VOJNAR
Kamil Vojnar will be exhibiting new work in mixed media, Photomontages on paper and canvas from
his ongoing series, Flying Blind. Kamil Vojnar’s work focuses on the contradictory world in which we
live, metaphorically focusing on the place where beauty and suffering meet. The artist mixes elements
from dreams in his work and lets intuition and the materials he uses to guide him to his final image.
The artist often revisits his images repeatedly to place them in different contexts, creating variations of
one image several times.
Vojnar’s unique approach to his work layers images from many different photographs and textures.
Sometimes his work is layered on canvas creating one-of-a-kind pieces, and other times he layers on
fine art paper, creating a small edition. In both instances he varnishes with oil and wax, sometimes
painting on further with oil paints.
Kamil Vojnar was born in Czechoslovakia in 1962. He studied at the School of Graphic Arts in
Prague and began his career as a Graphic Designer. He left the country illegally (it was still
Communist at the time), and moved to Vienna. Kamil eventually became a US citizen. Kamil finished
his studies at the Art Institute of Philadelphia. He continued his career in graphic design, which later
led to illustration and imagery based photography as he working for book and music publishing
houses in New York City. At the same time, he continued to create his own imagery. After meeting
his partner and having children, going back and forth between France and New York, they settled in
France where he had an Atelier that carried his own work. He and his family moved to Los Angeles,
CA in 2011. Kamil has received numerous awards including being the recipient of the Jacob Riis
Award in 2010.
HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
(Selection of low-resolution jpgs below)
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY BRIGITTE CARNOCHAN – Hand-painted Gelatin Silver
Brigitte Carnochan working
Fuji Persimmon, 2003, 9.5x9.5”,
Handpainted gelatin silver print, Ed. of 25
Sphinx, 1996, 14.5x14.5”
Handpainted gelatin silver print, Ed. of 25
Peony I, 1998, 14.5x14.5”
Handpainted gelatin silver print, Ed. of 25
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY CY DECOSSE – Platinum & Gum Dichromate
Cy DeCosse and Keith Taylor working
Japanese Chrysanthemum, 2006, 20x27”
Gum Dichromate, Ed. of 15
Autumn Quince and Lemon II, 2004, 20x20”
Gum Dichromate, Ed. of 15
Squash, 1995, 15x15”, Ed. of 50, Platinum
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY JOY GOLDKIND – Bromoil
Joy Goldkind’s Bromoil Setup
Image 1077, Bromoil, Ed. of 5
Image 5887, Bromoil, Ed. of 5
4 prints Quadtych, Bromoil, Ed. of 5
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY JENNIFER SCHLESINGER – Albumen
Jennifer Schlesinger’s Albumen Setup
Here nor There 2, 8x3.5”
Albumen, Ed. of 9
Here nor There 4, 8x3.5”
Albumen, Ed. of 9
Here nor There 8, 8x3.5”
Albumen, Ed. of 9
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY CAITLYN SOLDAN – Mordançage
Caitlyn Soldan’s gelatin silver print on
direct positive paper, before Mordançage
Thin Veils Volume II: #10, 10x8”
Mordançage, , Ed. 1 of 1
Thin Veils Volume II: #3, 8x10”
Mordançage, Ed. 1 of 1
Thin Veils Volume II: #4, 8x10”
Mordançage, Ed. 1 of 1
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY HENRIEKE STRECKER – Photogravure & Chine-Collé
Inking and wiping the copper plate
Untitled, Photogravure and Chine-Collé,
10x7, Ed. of 20
The Pilgrim, 2006, Photogravure and Chine-Collé,
4.25x5.75, Ed. of 20
Untitled, 2011, Photogravure and Chine-Collé
5.75 x 9.25, Ed. of 20
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY MAGGIE TAYLOR – Digital Montage
The Visitor. 2011. 15x15, Archival pigment ink print,
Ed. of 15
The Divide. 2011. 15x15, Archival pigment ink print,
Ed. of 15
Signs point to yes. 2011. 15x15,
Archival pigment ink print, Ed. of 15
Nevermind. 2011. 15x15,
Archival pigment ink print, Ed. of 15
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VERVE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY KAMIL VOJNAR – Mixed Media
Kamil Vojnar working
New Departure, mixed media, 16x16”, Ed. 1 of 1
Open Sea, mixed media, 16x16”, Ed. 1 of 1
Balloon Journey, mixed media, 16x16”, Ed. 1 of 1
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