Photography NOW – 13th – 24th October
Photography NOW
13th – 24th October
Private view: 13th October 6 – 8:30pm
ARTISTS:
Cheryle G. Galloway @cheryle.g.galloway
Cheryle G. Galloway is a Zimbabwean-born photographer living in the US. Her work transitioned into self-portraiture during the early months of the COVID lockdown. Pre-COVID, Cheryle ’s work was surrounding nature, street and portraiture. Since February 2020, she has focused primarily on creating and amplifying her own voice to tell more personal stories, exploring issues of identity, gender and race.
This series of images was borne out of the immense loss and sadness we have witnessed as a collective during the pandemic. How does this global experience of grief and despair affect the individual? The loss of a dear friend felt like a part of me too was gone forever. How many small deaths do we experience with loss of loved ones, circumstances such as a job, a marriage or even a home? What do we feel when we sit with these most painful emotions and give our heart to them?
Artist Statement: The Stranger Who Was Yourself
Self-acceptance is the spiritual journey each soul must embark on to ultimately come home to themselves. Inspired by the poem “Love After Love” by Derek Walcott, this series of images explores the road to self-love through discovery of one’s true nature, self-acceptance and soul integration.
When the pandemic began, like so many other people, I found myself in a place I never could have imagined I would be – quarantining alone when my son was not with me. Confined to my apartment, cut off from the external world and experiencing the sudden loss of connection, loss of loved ones, and feeling a loss of identity from the people, places and things outside of us which validated our existence. What happens after breakdown, being broken down? What remains after loss?
Carl Jung wrote, “It is, moreover, only in the state of complete abandonment and loneliness that we experience the helpful powers of our own natures.” In the space, silence and stillness, I invite “the stranger who was” my Self to heal and become whole again. Through recognition of self and validation of feelings, needs, wants and desires, I welcome in the parts of Self I had estranged.
Who is “the stranger who has love you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart.”
“Give wine. Give bread.”
Jongwon Choi @joyahama
A 23-year-old South Korean currently based in Paris, Jongwon Choi silently contemplates the emotions in the street by being distant and ignored from the crowd. The warm-hearted feeling from Linda McCartney’s works and the very personal and original vision of Saul Leiter’s works led him to fall in love with photography. Through photography, Jongwon tries to communicate with people in a very personal and also universal way.
For his first exhibition, Jongwon presents 14 works from a series entitled ‘Heart and Lungs’, in which he tried to express his thoughts and emotions such as love, loneliness, identity, life as a stranger, etc. through images. Photography was the best way to express the emotion of an introverted young boy who left his homeland to find his spiritual home. He was inspired to create this series by many musicians who sang about their inner side, including the Beatles, Nick Drake, Bob Dylan, Vashti Bunyan, Angel Olsen and Beach House.
Caroline Elstow @carolineelstow_photoart
I started creating these images living alone during covid lockdown in the UK. I’d collect snail shells, dead leaves and feathers on my daily walks, take photos at home and spend hours editing them on my phone, changing the shadows, highlights and enhancing the natural colours watching the image form rather like a painter watching the strokes of a paint brush forming an image. I often over pixilated to bring out texture and leave lines and detail undefined giving the impression of a painting rather than a photograph. I also photograph treebark which when coloured makes amazing abstract wall art and create images reminiscent of surrealist paintings as in the one called ‘chocolate and Caramel’. I’ve called my collection ‘An Earthy Landscape’. Each unique image, presented as a fine art image in a matt finish, is a cross over between photography and art. I find it so interesting how we all see and interpret things differently. As a writer I use the same metaphors and imagery when naming my work.
Tamer Tur @tamertur
Born in Ankara in 1974, Tamer Tur received his BA in business administration from Bilkent University. He then obtained his MBA degree from University of California. His interest in photography was initiated by his better half Seda who gifted him a camera in 2012. Since then, he particated a series of workshops to improve his technique. His work was exhibited in a group exhibition in 2020, in Alpek Art Gallery. With an observartional approach to photography, he likes documenting urban life.
All proceeds will be donated to the Deep Poverty Network.
Nicolas Salloum @nicolasalloum
I am a former French medical resident. Passionate about visual arts, I decided to resign in 2020 in order to devote myself to my artistic projects, in the field of photography and digital composing. My photographic work really started in 2019 using my cellphone, a Huawei P30 Pro equipped with four Leica sensors. Very quickly, my interest started to focus on detail photography. Buildings, unnoticed objects, fragments of plastic bodies, amongst others, were and still remain my main obsession. At the beginning of 2021, my parents gave me their reflex camera, a Nikon D5100. From now on, I mostly work with a Nikkor 300mm telephoto lens and a Sigma 105mm macro lens.
My very first project, “Shades Of Dream”, endeavors to explore the border between reality and fiction and to enhance the visual power of a very wide panel of details from our daily environment in order to oer a new form of aesthetics, that of the unnoticed.
To achieve this work, I proceeded in two steps. The first one was focused on a combination of close-up and macro photography, shooting very varied details from multiple sources : decorative objects, sculptures, wax bodies, architectural elements, among others. Then, using 2D and 3D digital creation softwares, I picked up a snippet of my original picture and I tried to build a brand new surreal object using various combinations of spatial transformations (trimming, symmetry, rotation, duplication). The main idea of my work is to put forward a new conception of the photographic medium. By appending the photo and its transformation, I strive to gather reality and fiction in the same visual space.
I want my artworks to be a kind of visual and psychic enigma. I am looking to push the viewer to ask oneself, even before having felt an aesthetic emotion, the following question : “Where am I ?”
Calmeview By Dorte Lenau Klint @calmeview and @dortelenauklint
Photo artist, Designer. Danish, Based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Worked within design field globally for decade, member of Intercolor an interdisciplinary color network.
Through my work as a designer, my passion for capture the moment through my camera lens has always been my passion and my priority. I been told that I have an eye for capture the moment and as a challenge I never editing my pictures. My challenge is to catch the right moment, regarding light, shadow in my surroundings composition.
Learning from the past and exploring old techniques I came across the cyanotype technique, that brings me to this exhibition.
My fascination for the process is an ongoing inspiration for chancing the normal.
Before camera was a thing, this camera less, light sensitive technique was used to document the biodiversity of plants almost as a photo. I take it to a more abstract level, through different process I discovered the multiple colors and expression of the technique. Getting my inner energy transformed onto the media.
I explore the do and don’t of the photo technique Cyanotype, through playfulness and the fascination of finding new ways.
I am fascinated by the simplicity of the technique, I use the heat and light from the sun trusting my instinct, being in the present and catching the moment.
We take the nature for granted; by focusing and concentrating on the suns position, strength and intensity my process is depending on the mood of the weather, something we cannot take for granted.
I hope the viewer will see the diversity in my work, from
Abstract motif to feminine touch of watercolor mood, all based on the 2 basic components from traditional cyanotype. I investigate different type and weight of paper.
My approach is very intuitive, impulsive and grounding. A mix of technique, curiosity.
Through bringing intuition into a field of structure and rules, I believe, as human being we would enjoy life to a greater extent by trusting our instinct. Live more in the present.
MY focus has been trying to experiment and explore the process; by giving space to different hues of colors like cognac and light green. Giving space to a more abstract and deep look throughout the developing process.
Just like a new universe – My universe.
Inspired by The Nordic light, sky, sea and air, I try to captor the mood and light of a Scandinavian nature in this series.
The Brick Lane Gallery – The Annexe
93 – 95 Sclater Street | London | E1 6HR
Phone: +44 (0) 207 729 9721
Instagram: @bricklanegallery