T R A N S L U C E N T R E A L I T Y
On View March 12th- May 8th, 2021
In a translucent reality, reality and fantasy overlap; both are present, but they cannot be easily distinguished from one another. Instead, they morph back and forth, and potentially create a dynamic that allows humanity to recreate itself, bringing ideas together to get a clearer world-view. The artists in this exhibition are striving for a sense of enlightenment by shining through the veil to express their truths and mysteries. The featured artists in this exhibition utilize traditional and alternative photographic methods, in conjunction with Denver’s famous Month of Photography.
This group exhibition features the work of Melanie Walker, Bonny Lhotka, Katie Kalkstein, Aaron Morgan Brown, Mona Ray, and Sara Sanderson
Press Release (pdf)
Price List (pdf)
Melanie Walker
In this new body of work, MELANIE WALKER looks to the sky as a place of refuge in considering the atmosphere as a collective space. Over 300 images of the sky, Japanese Kozo paper, bamboo and wax will create a suspended aerial sculpture. This work represents the fragile passage of time and our collective breath in the air that we breathe.
Artist Statement (pdf)
Resume (pdf)
“Our ancestors watched the skies. They used the sky as a way to monitor change, from solstice to solstice, to navigate their way through time and space. Some think that clouds are the shared collective breath of the ancestors. Clouds make the atmosphere tangible, visible.”
“Throughout this period of time we are going through I have thought a lot about the sky as a place of refuge and the gasses that make up our atmosphere as a collective space. The air we all breathe, a shared breath, standing together, lifting each other up. It is my place of hope.”
Melanie Walker
Beneath a Sheltering Sky
photography printed on kozo paper, wood, string
10’x15.5’x10’
$35,000
Katie Kalkstein
KATIE KALKSTEIN’s recent series represents our current systems of connection and disconnection with the earth, the failed language to save ourselves from environmental damage, and the resilience of nature to adapt to our interventions. As the images float, the words become ephemeral like breath, as do memories of the land and each other. Word poems are created and recreated by the air and human presence in a shared connection to inspire hope and a new language.
Artist Statement (pdf)
Resume (pdf)
“Many ideas for this work came from the intersections of climate change, power, and systemic injustice impacting this basic need to sustain life. The earth breathes in relation to the body, and it is even more apparent of the need to work toward a world where all can thrive.”
“As the images float, the words become ephemeral like breath, as do memories of the land and each other.
Word poems are created and recreated by the air and human presence in a shared connection to inspire a new language.”
Bonny Lhotka
Using veils of color, movement and texture, both physical and by manipulating the photo, BONNY LHOTKA chooses to reshape reality both before and after her image is captured. She captures several moments in time and interweaves them to create a new reality of flowing, distorted and translucent work. The composite images are moments of memory, time and places, all altered by the visual interruption of textures, transparency and illusions.
Artist Statement (pdf)
Resume (pdf)
“These photographs are of images behind gossamer veils of white and black silk. The objects behind the silk are softened and have a tonal distortion. They reflect a view of the world from inside looking out which is like the environment around us as filtered by events and time lapse.
One day bleeds to another leaving bits of memory that float into the next day.”
“The Songs of Spring work have the appearance of a wind-up music box with mechanical parts. They are small joyful objects. They are assembled from parts of photographs with each item being stacked in layers like a repetition of time.”
“Each layer is like a sequence of days without variation. Looking back on my lenticular work they are similar to the individual photographic frames used to create the work.
If they had been interlaced for a 3D lenticular image they would be seen in a full 3D reality.”
Sara Sanderson
SARA SANDERSON’s work balances the worlds of memory and realism. Drawn to organic landscapes and structures, the paintings offer an intensity of color, brushwork and gesture. Sanderson’s work captures the essence of a subject while allowing the viewer to imagine their own sentiment. Beginning with a simple drawing, the paintings take shape through observations of light and shadow, which allows for a visual melody to unfold.
Artist Statement (pdf)
Resume (pdf)
“Beginning with a simple drawing, the paintings take shape through observations of light and shadow which allows for a visual melody to unfold. “
Aaron Morgan Brown
AARON MORGAN BROWN’s work illuminates the intersection of observation and imagination. He constructs a fictional borderland, a formalized theater of the mind, where reality is stratified and ever changing. Memories, perceptions, projections, ephemera, abstractions — all combine and inform each other, as they pass through internal and external landscapes.
Artist Statement (pdf)
Resume (pdf)
“My paintings are pictorial orchestrations, views of an alternate interior universe that are sewn together from daily observations, memories, impressions of the world at large, cultural ephemera, and my imagination.”
“They are both a prismatic lens through which I can re-view reality, and a transcription of my subconscious directives. I seek to illuminate intersections of the seen and unseen.”
Mona Ray
With the landscape as her ever-present muse, MONA RAY’s paintings weave together elements of observation and memory, seeking a moment of transcendence in a time of uncertainty. Keeping her approach intuitive and spontaneous, Ray builds up colors and textures, drawing into the paint and scraping through with various tools. The paintings ebb and flow between chaos and clarity, destruction and creation, until the dialogue slows and the work begins to say something that feels true.
Artist Statement (pdf)
Resume (pdf)
“With the landscape as my ever-present muse, these paintings weave together elements of observation and memory, seeking a moment of transcendence in a time of uncertainty. While ethereal skies remain a focus in this series, trees share the stage in much of my recent work: beckoning, sheltering, gesturing toward the evanescent light.”
“Throughout [the painting] process, the painting ebbs and flows between chaos and clarity, destruction and creation, until the dialogue slows and the painting begins to say something that feels true. The piece opens up at this point and becomes three things at once: a landscape, a tangible record of my thoughts and struggles as I created it, and something larger, something I cannot entirely claim as my own— a whole greater than the sum of its parts.”
Press and Praise for Translucent Reality
