|
Art News:
You may if you no longer wish to receive our
emails.
|
Bill Armstrong
Spirit: from the Infinity
Series
Artist Talk, Book Signing, and Opening
Reception
Book Signing and Reception
6:00 - 7:00 pm
|
|
"A world just beyond our grasp, where
place may be suggested, but is never defined, and where the identity of the
amorphous figures remains in question. It is a world that might exist in
memory, in dreams, or, perhaps, in a parallel universe yet unvisited."
-Bill
Armstrong
|
|
Spirit: from the
Infinity
Series
November 20, 2010-
February 6,
2011
Bill Armstrong's Infinity series
transforms re-photographed and appropriated images to create ephemeral,
abstracted and de-materialized color fields and strongly evocative iconic
figures. Working with source material as diverse as African masks, Roman busts,
statuary and other representations, Armstrong's finished figurative and portrait
images are powerfully evocative of an unseen presence.
Spirit presents
selections from five of the series that make up Bill Armstrong's
Infinity project. Working with his unique process of re-photographing
appropriated images and subjecting them to a series of manipulations; Armstrong
exploits the integrating capacities of camera focus to merge image details,
edges and colors to create seamless color fields and mysterious, iconic
figures.
"The Mandala and
Buddha images refer to Eastern spirituality. Mandalas are concentric circles of
images that depict central themes in Buddhism, such as the Wheel of Life or the Map of the Cosmos. Through
abstraction, blur and simplification, I explore these broad themes that remain
open and invite the viewer's personal interpretation. The Mandalas change as one
gazes into them, pulsating as if alive, and inviting an inquiry into the idea of
"being" within the inanimate. The Buddhas address mutability versus permanence;
their soft luminosity suggests
transcendence.
Masks & Skulls refers to African
masks and ideas about "evil spirits." I take concrete objects, with their
powerful, symbolic associations of fear and death-what Andre Malraux called "the
night side of man"-and subtly shift their meaning by transforming them. The
resulting abstractions hold some of the residual dark power of the original
object, but are softened, both literally and figuratively, into something
illusory and
weightless.
In the Apparitions series some
of the images are dark, ghoulish visions, yet others are hopeful, spiritual
presences. The powerful features of these Romans-emperor and soldier alike-bear
witness to the eternal truths of the human condition and the precarious balance
of hope and fear.
On another level, the work resonates for me personally. I
made these images soon after my father died of cancer, yet it was only later
that I understood that I had been trying to communicate with him through the
medium of light-sensitive materials. This evidence of the power of subconscious
motivation was a revelation to me, and the fact that some of the ghostly images
actually resembled my father was uncanny. So Apparition is a personal
quest to come to grips with the horror of death and the hope of redemption
through image making.
The Figures represent the common household
notion of ghosts and spirits. I refer here to the widely-held, late19th century
belief that mediumistic photography would prove the existence of ghosts, and to
the many hucksters who claimed to prove it with sham pictures. More seriously, I
hope the ghosts and silhouettes can be seen as visions of the human soul."
-Bill
Armstrong
|
|
Bill Armstrong
holds a B.A. in art history and an M.B.A. from Boston University. His work has
recently been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Gallery Kayafas; ClampArt, New
York; Dolby Chadwick, San Francisco; the Silver Eye Center for Photography;
DeSantos Gallery; Scott White Contemporary Art; Sara Nightingale Gallery;
Hackelbury Fine Art, London; the Griffin Museum of Photography and the
Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Images from the Infinity series have been
featured in major group exhibitions at commercial and public galleries in Europe
and the US including the Center for Creative Photography, the Center for Fine
Art Photography; Houston Center for Photography; the Victoria and Albert Museum;
Aperture Foundation; Ambient Art Projects; the DeCordova Museum; the
Photographic Resource Center; the International Center of Photography; Forma
Centro Internazionale di Fotografia; Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam; Musee De
l'Elysee, Lausanne; Recontres D'Arles, Arles and the Hayward Gallery, London.
Armstrong's photographs have appeared in a number of major publications
including The Edge of Vision: The Rise
of Abstraction in Photography (2009); Photographic Possibilities (2007); Face: The New Photographic Portrait
(2006); Exploring Color
Photography (2004) as well as in the Boston Globe; New York Times; Utne
Reader and the New Yorker. His work is in numerous public collections including
the Brooklyn Museum, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art;
Addison Gallery of American Art; Bibliotheque Nationale de France; Musee De
l'Elysee; Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
University; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; Santa Barbara Museum of Art;
Southeast Museum of Photography; Museum of the City of New York and the Victoria
and Albert Museum, London. Armstrong lives and works in New York where he is
also an adjunct faculty at the School of Visual Arts and the International
Center of Photography.
|
Catalogs available
in the museum gift shop:
|
Mandala by Bill
Armstrong
Introduction by Katherine
Ware
Published and released by
Photo-Eye
$20.00 tax included
Like other portfolios in his series
Infinity, Armstrong's mandalas are made from collages he creates and
then photographs with the camera's focusing ring set on infinity. He then
creates chromogenic prints from the resultant negatives. By taking an
out-of-focus photograph, the artist concentrates not on detailed form and
subject but on the rich, saturated colors that shift and pulsate in relation to
one another, inviting an inquiry into the interconnectedness of all
things.
Philadelphia Museum
of Art, 2008
44 pp., Numerous color illustrations,
9x9"
|
|
Apparition by
Bill
Armstrong
Introduction by A.D.
Coleman
Published and released by
Photo-Eye
$20.00 tax included
The mysterious
and powerful images in this body of work capture fleeting 'visitations' from the
spirit world - visions as they might appear in dreams or heightened states of
wakefulness. The photographs are made using Armstrong's unique process of
re-working found images and photographing them extremely out of focus. In this
case, the original source materials are reproductions of Roman sculpture shot
with the camera lens set at infinity.
The meanings underpinning Apparition radiate in a number of
directions. While many of the images are dark, ghoulish visions, others are
hopeful spiritual presences. For Armstrong, the ghosts of ancient Rome represent
particularly appropriate messenders of our time, as we contemplate the fate of
our own empire.
Clamp
Art, New York,
2005
Unpaged, 16 full-color plates,
8˝x11"
|
|
Saturday, November 20,
2010
5:00 -
7:00pm
Exhibition opening lecture, book
signing, and reception
|
|
|
|
MUSEUM
HOURS
OPEN - Tues, Thurs, Fri: 11-5 pm; Wed: 11-7
pm; Weekends: 1-5 pm
June, July and
December Hours: Tues-Sun: 12-4
pm
CLOSED - Mondays and for the following dates:
Easter Sunday, Daytona 500 Weekend,
Daytona State College Spring Break, July 4, July 31-August 17, Thanksgiving
Weekend, December 17 - January
11
MUSEUM
LOCATION
Unless noted otherwise, all museum
exhibitions, events and films are presented at the Southeast Museum of
Photography which is located on the Daytona Beach campus of Daytona State
College at 1200 International Speedway Blvd, three miles east of 1-95.
The museum is located in the Mori Hosseini Center
(Bld. 1200).
Visitor parking is available. Gallery Admission is free.
For detailed exhibition and program information visit www.smponline.org or call the museum
information hotline at (386) 506-4475.
|
|
|
Southeast Museum of
Photography
A Service of
Daytona State
College
1200
W. International Speedway Blvd.
Daytona Beach, FL
32114
(386) 506-4475
|
|
|
|
|
|
Southeast Museum of Photography | 1200 W
International Speedway Blvd. | Daytona Beach | FL |
32114
|
| |
#
|
YOUR FIRST STOP FOR ART ONLINE! |
|
Discover over 150,000 works of contemporary art. Search by medium, subject matter, price and theme... research over 200,000 works by over 22,000 masters in the indepth art history section. Browse through new Art Blogs. Use our advanced artwork search interface.
Call for Artists, Premiere Portfolio sign-up for your Free Portfolio or create an Artist Portfolio today and sell your art at the marketplace for contemporary Art! Start a Gallery Site to exclusively showcase your gallery. Keep track of contemporary art with your free MYabsolutearts account.
|
|
Copyright 1995-2013. World Wide Arts Resources Corporation. All rights reserved
|
|
|