NYAB Event - "Four Photographers: Dieter Rehm, Stewart Simons, Sandy Skoglund, Millee Tibbs" Exhibition

"Four Photographers: Dieter Rehm, Stewart Simons, Sandy Skoglund, Millee Tibbs" Exhibition

RYAN LEE

This event has ended.

Dieter Rehm's (b. 1955, Memmingen, Bavaria) Ilfochrome prints present the viewer with an unreal reality. Though the scenes themselves are not altered, Rehm manipulates color, exploring the positive and negative realities of his subjects--sometimes combining both in a single image. His background as a painter informs his photographic compositions and coloration. He uses an 8 x 10-inch analog, large format camera which he takes with him on his travels. Herrenchiemsee 3 and Herrenchiemsee 6 depict the Bavarian palace of the same name, built in the late 19th century by King Ludwig II of Bavaria.

Stewart Simons' (b.1971, Pittsburgh, PA) work explores ideas of family, landscape, and the peripheral nature of outsiders, including the artist himself. In selections from both series presented in this exhibition, The Deer Hunters and The Little Book of America, there is a strong undercurrent of cultural identity and place. To create The Deer Hunters, Simons spent time with the Copperknolls, a family of frontiersmen in Menomonie, WI. The resulting series examines the symbolic nature of rugged individualism and the decision to live life in a harsh land. The Little Book of America deals with portraiture and identity through incidental photographs taken throughout the country upon Simons' return after living abroad for five years.

Sandy Skoglund (b. 1946, Quincy, MA) is known for her playful mixed media installations combining sculpture and performance, and her photographs and prints based on them. Combining humor, kitsch, science fiction, and manipulated cultural iconography, Skoglund's alternate realities are both enchanting and subversive. Her photographs are more than documents of her installations; they are "painterly visual statements." On view is a large scale photograph of Breathing Glass (2000) and installation that incorporates floating human figures amongst tiny mechanized dragonflies, miniature marshmallows, and a mosaic of blue glass. The room installation is permanently installed at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, FL.

In Millee Tibbs' (b. 1976, Huntsville, AL) series, "this is a picture of me," Tibbs recreates photos of herself from childhood using costumes, props, and some digital manipulation. Tibbs is interested in where photography shifts from an act of documentation to a subjective rendering and how the two overlap. She aims to see below the surface of an image, and how our behavior changes for the camera.