State Of the Art Gallery, Ithaca
“On the Leading Edge,” a two-person show of work by artists Jan Kather and Stan Bowman will open at State of the Art April 4 and run through April 29, 2012. A reception for the artists will be held at the gallery Friday, April 6, Gallery Night in downtown Ithaca, from 5-8pm with a cider tasting hosted by Bellwether Hard Cider of Trumansburg.
Spanning the gamut from traditional silver prints to incorporating digital video as a sculptural element, Kather will be “testing the waters” with abstract photographic imagery and sound in this installation. Bowman, although a long time photographer, is exploring new technology in the form of iPad images. These are abstract images created and drawn by hand on the iPad, augmented with a variety of iPad apps.
More information and imagery from these artists: www.jankatherphotography.com // www.stanbowman.com
Over the past twenty years, artist/photographer Stan Bowman has explored the computer and digital software as tools for creating art. “Abstract Discoveries,” the most current evidence of his efforts and explorations will be on display during June to visitors of State of the Art Gallery in Ithaca. Bowman’s work in this exhibition is in the form of giclee prints: most are printed on canvas and a few on metallic paper.
“These current images are for me a celebration of my interest in abstraction,” Bowman says. “I am an abstract artist by inclination. Even when I began as a photographer in the 1950s my black and white images of subjects were organized with overall abstract patterns in mind. Places were important but so was the way the picture was organized in the frame. This attention to the abstract nature of imagery probably came originally from my years spent as an architect with its strong design emphasis, and my very intense interest in modernism with its focus on simplicity of form, shape and texture.”
Sharp Outline, one of the giclee prints in the exhibition, demonstrates Bowman’s use of abstract patterns and the ways he builds and manipulates them on the computer. Although not black and white, he has organized his subject–colored shapes, which look like they were formed from a thick painting medium textured by a trowel–in layers of various colors and stages of enlargement. There is an action caught–as if it were being captured through the viewfinder of a camera—of opaque shapes rising upward and leaving below trailings of what they once were.
Bowman has created this abstract imagery using programs like Adobe Photoshop. “I am now pushing forward into new exciting territories,” he says, “I zoom in and feature pixels as the building block for abstract patterns, altering them using the powerful manipulation and transformation tools of Photoshop. For me, discovery is the name of the game.”
“Abstract Discoveries” will be on exhibit June 3-28, 2009, with a reception for the artist Friday, June 5 from 5-8pm at the gallery. State of the Art is located at 120 W. State Street in downtown Ithaca. There is curbside parking and the gallery is ADA accessible. Hours are: Wed. – Fri., 12-6pm, Sat. & Sun., 12-5pm. Contact information: 607-277-1626, www.soag.org//and www.http://Stanbowman.com//
