Alchemy of Light

Zeke Berman, Granville Carroll, Caleb Charland, Chuck Kelton, Jungjin Lee, 
Meghann Riepenhoff, Alison Rossiter, and Kari Wehrs

March 29 - April 26, 2024
Opening and Artists' talk: Friday, March 29, 5 – 6:30 p.m. (Talk at 5:30)

The Schick Art Gallery presents Alchemy of Light, an exhibition centering photography as an experimental medium, with 8 artists who manipulate their materials or processes and use light as a creative tool. In an age of quickly-consumed digital images, these works ask us to abandon our preconceptions about photography and slow down.  Co-curator Robert ParkeHarrison, Professor of photography at Skidmore, says ”These artists are inventors who are kind of out on their own, working in an in-between space. They’re seeing the unseen in the moment, which is thrilling.”
 
In a series titled ‘A View, Not from a Window,’  Chuck Kelton forgoes cameras altogether, creating images by exposing photosensitive paper to light or chemicals. He also manipulates the paper itself, creating jagged horizon lines across moody expanses.  Other artists also dispense with the camera, instead exposing photo paper to unusual situations - Meghann Riepenhoff and Kari Wehrs collaborate with natural elements-water, sunlight, time, plants, even ice-in constructing their images.
 
Caleb Charland’s black and white images combine a geometric elegance with a sense of rigorous experimentation. He says “For me wonder is a state of mind somewhere between knowledge and uncertainty. [As] the basis of my practice [it] results in images that are simultaneously familiar yet strange.” 
 
This intentional ambiguity applies to the works of others in the group as well. Jungjin Lee brushes Liquid Light onto handmade mulberry paper; of her starkly poetic works, she says “My images should be seen as metaphors…I do not depict landscape or nature.” Granville Carroll’s layered, dreamlike pictures rework the physical world, combining multiple images that question who we are beyond the constructs of society. 
 
ParkeHarrison’s curatorial interest extends to artists for whom manipulation of materials is part of the concept.  Zeke Berman sets up and films experiments in thermodynamics, allowing frozen objects to melt, resulting in videos rich with unexpected moments of beauty and humor. Alison Rossiter uses expired photo papers she finds on eBay, with traces of damage revealing decades of disuse and storage. By developing selective areas of the paper, she creates compositions that have striking illusions of volume and depth.
 
Alchemy of Light is co-curated by Robert ParkeHarrison, Rebecca Shepard, and Trish Lyell.

Watch Gallery Talk snippets at the following links:

Robert ParkeHarrison speaking about Meghann Riepenhoff's work:https://photos.app.goo.gl/Y9SKZWZDMKc9SYa49

Alison Rossiter: https://photos.app.goo.gl/aWTvHVZN5mnPEmBm7

Zeke Berman: https://photos.app.goo.gl/LPvimqKNyCbQTeRB6

Granville Carroll: https://photos.app.goo.gl/aSdSLLC7dSYfpEum6

All Schick Gallery exhibits and events are free and open to the public.