Some of the most cryptic and ghostly examples of photography crafted by three individuals are currently mounted on the walls of the Eddie Rhodes Gallery in A-5.
“Reinventing Memory” is the title of the exhibition running until Feb. 19, which features three diverse mediums that stretch the boundaries of traditional photography.
Artists Philip Ringler, Mark Lindsay and Contra Costa College alumni Rosa Valdez have brought works from their collections to display their experimental sides.
Upon entering the gallery, one first notices Ringler’s four subliminally dark pieces on the Eastern wall.
“I’m using these images as metaphors. I’m taking these photos in real life but I’m transforming them into psychological landscapes,” Ringler said.
His works, the largest in the gallery, measure at 37 inches wide by 56 inches tall and feature a sepia tone. They are also complimented by Ringler’s own secret chemical stain technique.
Produced in a traditional black and white film darkroom on mural paper, the works are not meant to be thought of as pictures, Ringler said. Rather, he wishes his audience would go deeper into the content.
“Most people want to know where it was taken or what it’s of,” Ringler said of his works on display in the exhibition. “If that’s the only thing (asked), I feel like I failed.”
Ringler relates the pieces’ context to the human mind, which is his true subject. One photograph titled “We’ll Never Meet Again, Not in This Broken World” explores an abandoned amusement park, which Ringler was inspired to take a shot of through events in his nightmares.
“You can enter that picture and sit inside,” Ringler said. “Human emotions are represented in an abandoned amusement park. There’s something about these places that’s symbolic (and) represents elements of the human condition.”
Alongside the gloomy outtake from his dreams is a dimmed shot of a dismantled mechanical horse named “A Heart the Size of a Horse.” The subject matter is far from what is seen on the canvas, Ringler said. The term “horse” is a slang word for the drug heroin. To the artist, the horse pictured in the display is a representation of an addict — stripped.
Debbie Kline, an attendee of the show’s reception on Thursday, described Ringler’s work as phenomenal. “It allows you to (question) what this photo is saying, you contribute to the photo,” Kline said.
Moving to the northern wall and half of the western wall, a much simpler and smaller medium is displayed. Nine prints sized 16 by 20 inches feature the high-contrast faces of unidentified women imprinted on large tags.
The series of women is just a portion of 665 similar prints done by Valdez for her master’s of fine art show at John F. Kennedy University.
The collection, titled “665,” is based on the dehumanization and murder of 665 women in Guatemala in 2005, Valdez said.
“I felt it wasn’t getting enough attention,” she said.
To create the project, Valdez asked friends and family for pictures of women who played a significant role in their lives. She then scanned the photos and increased the contrast and printed them using an aged copying machine. Using a citrus-based solvent and cotton, she lifted the toner from the paper to small tags.
For the show, Valdez increased the size of the tags. Two of the women in the tags are her own mother and mother-in-law.
“I wanted to at least show how photography could be manipulated and extended,” she said.
Valdez started off as a photography student at CCC under the instruction of art professor Ronald Moroni in 1990 after she graduated from Pinole Valley High School.
“She’s one of the best student’s I’ve had,” Moroni said. “I’m proud of her. It’s nice to see a student go and make a career in photography as her emphasis.”
Valdez spent three years in Moroni’s classes experimenting with different techniques within photography. She took part in her first art show in 1993 in the same gallery.
“I feel a great sense of responsibility to give back to the community,” Valdez said.
The remainder of the west wall and the entire south displays a combination of traditional film and digital photography techniques used to design Lindsay’s masterpiece set. His series, “Desolation’s Comfort,” contains 29 black and white segments, of which six are hung in the gallery.
The images make use of digital photos of landscape altered in Adobe Photoshop and film negatives or prints of people that are restored and scanned in to resemble actual photographs. Many of Lindsay’s subjects are placed inside the photo so well that it is difficult to tell if the image has been doctored. Most of the people placed carefully inside the digital areas are ancestors to Lindsay.
“All the characters are found photographs from my grandmother’s scrapbook from (approximately) 1920 to 1950,” Lindsay said.
On the west wall, the 13th piece in the series features a dark, cloudy sky hanging right above a young girl dressed in bright white Roman Catholic attire to the left of the print. A bird in flight to the right is added as Lindsay’s signature.
Taken in the Marin headlands, the image remains as one of Lindsay’s favorites. It makes use of a red photographic filter, which gives the sky in the image a warm contrast feel.
On the southern wall, a flight of stairs from the ruins of the Marin headlands is shown in the 26th installment of the series. Lindsay blends together the foreground and much of the background, giving the work a dreamlike feel. In the corner, once again appears an eerie girl, smiling in a crouched position.
Lindsay’s ideas develop “like a dream,” he said. “When working that closely with an image you get to know the character.”
Atop the stairs is a balcony on which a bird rests, dead center in the print. The graffiti on the wall compliments Lindsay’s gothic ruins theme.
Each artist brings his or her own ideas to the show, which go hand-in-hand with the works of their colleagues, Lindsay said.
“Our work really compliments each other’s real well,” he said.
Nostalgic art haunts Rhodes gallery
Traditional, new photography styles line walls
Published: Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Updated: Thursday, February 5, 2009
 "Photo: Isaac Thomas / The Advocate")
Isaac Thomas / The Advocate
Picture perfect — Barbra Blake (left) and Ana Smulian stare in awe at Philip Ringler’s “We’ll Never Met Again, Not in This Broken World” at the Eddie Rhodes Gallery Thursday.
2 comments
This kind of art (and the artists) could use some more exposure, people need to see this stuff- it's really strong work.