Great art, again
Yesterday the Living in Your Imagination show at Spaces Gallery impressed the heck out of me. Today it was Just Suppose: the Images of Jerry Uelsmann + Maggie Taylor at CIA (Cleveland Institute of Art). Oh, and we went to the Arms and Armor show at the Cleveland Museum of Art, but that was the least interesting of the three..
Uelsmann and Taylor use photo montage to create surrealistic composites that combine parts of multiple images. Both make thought-provoking and beautiful images that are technically gorgeous. The difference is that Uelsmann makes his prints using traditional negatives and enlargers in a darkroom, while Taylor uses a scanner, found imagery and Photoshop to create digital prints. Having some experience with both processes I know these artists are at the top of their craft. I'm in awe of what each does in his/her unique way.
This untitled image by Uelsmann was created by having several negatives in different enlargers and moving the photo paper from one to the other, "dodging" and "burning" sections of the images to create a seamless, flawless single print.
In trying to learn more about how he does this I explored a number of websites, none of which had much to say. I may have to buy Uelsmann's book Process and Perception to get a better understanding of his approach.
Taylor's whimsical yet slightly disturbing Man with Too Much Time is typical of her work in the show. Antique illustrations of people, often combined with everyday objects in odd situations are rendered in great detail and rich color.
Learning how Taylor works is easy due to her connection with Adobe Photoshop. Adobe offers a step-by-step illustrated description of Taylor creating the piece called Twilight Swim as a downloadable pdf. They've also teamed up to produce the book Maggie Taylor's Landscape of Dreams (Adobe Master Class)
If you're in Cleveland and you have even a passing interest in photography, photo montage, and/or creating art with Photoshop you need to see this show. It will be at the Art Institute's Reinberger Gallery until August 8, 2008. The show at Spaces that I talked about yesterday runs until July 6, 2008.
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