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Howard Rankin
My passions include Music,Nature and Travel, with Photography the common thread that runs through them all . I savour seizing the moment at a gig , or in the company of precious wildlife , but also the more considered thoughtful times in the landscape .
For my Abstract work my inspiration comes from my friends Valda Bailey and Doug Chinnery, working with multiple exposures and ICM . It can particularly gratifying to apply some of those techniques to the more conventional genres of Landscape , Music and Wildlife .
Rhythm Of The Unseen is a celebration of photographic expressionism and is the third exhibition by participants of the inaugural Abstract Rhythm and Blue Notes programme (see the article about the UK exhibition last October). This was an intensive year-long program exploring the intersection of photography, art, abstraction and creativity taught by British photographers Valda Bailey and Doug Chinnery.
Following exhibitions in 2022 at the Sohn Gallery Lenox Massachusetts, and The Horsebridge Gallery in Whitstable, UK, Rhythm Of The Unseen takes place at The Soho Gallery New York May 2nd -8th, 2023.
The exhibition will be showcasing the work of 11 international artists hailing from the US, Canada, Great Britain, Latvia and The Netherlands.
The title of the show, Rhythm of the Unseen, reflects the approach and vision of the exhibiting artists.
Like the abstract expressionist painters before them, their work is diverse and approaches photography in ways reflecting their individual and unique perspectives. They eschew the camera’s ability to capture reality and instead use techniques that challenge that reality. The results vary from visual distortion to impressionistic interpretations and pure abstraction.
They use a variety of in-camera techniques, such as multiple exposure and intentional camera movement (ICM), along with post-processing methods, as a way of abstracting shapes, eliminating detail and revealing the unseen in their images. They wield their cameras like a paintbrush, value spontaneity and improvisation and work in a way that, while controllable to a certain degree, retains a strong element of unpredictability and serendipity. The resulting works often turn the accepted notion of what a photograph is on its head.
The art will be presented on a variety of media, including aluminium, glass and silk, in addition to fine art archival paper prints.
There will be an Opening Reception on May 4th from 6:00 - 8:00 PM and an Artists’ Talk on May 6th from 3:00 - 4:00 PM. In addition, a series of talks and workshops by the artists are scheduled throughout the exhibition, including a special presentation by Stephanie Johnson of ICM Photography Magazine. All events are free but registration is required.
For more information and to sign up for the reception and the talks, visit https://rhythmoftheunseen.com.
Participating Artists
Jan Beesley
Awakening
Based in Sussex, UK, I use the camera as an artistic tool to capture my experience and feelings about the world around me. I believe that we experience the world as a series of fleeting impressions and emotions spiced and flavoured by our own memories and thoughts. I aim to capture not what I am looking at but what I see and feel.
My other passion is for the written word, especially poetry, and I am particularly interested in the interplay between words and images. My projects often involve both poetry and image.
In the same way that the dance of words in a poem can evoke a response, my aim is to capture the dance of colour, form and light.
Web: www.janbeephotography.com
Deborah Loeb Bohren
The offspring of two photographers, my passion for photography was inescapable, having been imprinted on my DNA. I discovered the darkroom when I was about 5, and won my first photography contest when I was in the 6th grade. I don’t remember a time when photography was not an essential part of my life.
Today I approach my work as a visual alchemy, a transformation not of matter but of colour, light, line and gesture. With my camera as a paintbrush, I use a variety of techniques, including intentional camera movement (ICM) and in-camera multiple exposures to create iconic and abstract images that reveal the essence, emotion and soul of the places I’ve been and the things I’ve seen. Each represents a unique moment in time, space and, of course, mind.
I am honoured to have my work as part of private/individual and corporate collections across the US and to have had it exhibited at the Sohn Gallery (MA), the Katonah Museum of Art (NY), the Praxis Photo Arts Center (MN) and the ASmith Gallery (TX), among others. My abstract image, “Homage to the Cubists in Paris”, was recognized for Outstanding Achievement/1st Place in the Professional Abstract category at the 14th Annual International Color Awards last year. I also chronicle my global adventures in words and images as a regular contributor to Everett Potter’s Travel Report.
Web: www.deborahloebbohren.com
Linda Hacker
I am a Brooklyn, NY based visual artist inspired by the built environment. It is in urban spaces that I feel most fully myself. My images explore and express the depth, complexity, and intimacy of the living city around me – the multiple ways any one thing can be seen/interpreted.
Using abstraction, I work to evoke a sense of mystery and ambiguity – moving between the material world as it is and what could be – the world of possibility I sense all around me. In creating these images, I am also exploring myself — my thoughts, emotions, and beliefs.
Dan Harnett
Goldfish
Inspired by my long and close association with the sea, my work ranges from abstract to still life photography. Drawing on experiences and memories from my time in the merchant navy and my childhood memories growing up on the Kent coast.
My photography is an extension of my life’s voyage, creating works that explore human relationships with the sea, conjuring images, stories and reflections. Having spent years at sea, I am well aware of the harsh environment and the sea and the ocean’s hidden strength.
I’m keenly cognisant of the different ways we experience the sea – a seafarer who lives and works on the water has a different outlook and priorities to a landlubber experiencing it from the shoreline.
Web: https://danielharnett.co.uk
Laura Goin
Embrace
My connection to the land runs deep. I grew up on a farm in the heartland of the United States, a land of mystery and seemingly unlimited horizons. Life on the farm was tough, and money was scarce, but open fields and quiet places to explore were plentiful. Summer days were spent roaming through pastures and the evenings lying in the grass gazing at the Milky Way. There was freedom as far as the eye could see.
Today, I wander with camera in hand to discover new horizons that reignite my childhood connection to the land. Using the abstraction of intentional camera movement, I attempt to bridge what my eyes see with what my heart feels. In creating these images, I’m transported back to magical and wondrous moments in the countryside. And in those moments, I am back home again.
Web: www.lauragoin.com
Annemarie Hogwoud
A Fresh New Start
By taking the time, I will see more and look differently.
Taking time is the common thread in my work. Both in my free work and my work on assignments.
Inspired by the beauty as I experience it in the story of a client, in the visual arts, novels, poems and music, I use my camera in search of the essence of what touches me, I see and experience. To discover what it is about for me. The inspirations often take shape and content in the landscape.
I use various camera en print techniques for this. This creates unusual images. Images that tell the story, images that ask to take the time, images that call for reflection. By working in series, I get to the essence and I be able to visualize and articulate the story in its full scope.
In a sometimes hectic, restless and hard world, I hope that my art inspires you to stand still, evokes an emotion and invites you to reflect on what is seen.
Web: https://www.annemariehoogwoud.nl
Howard Rankin
Warmth
My passions include music, nature and travel, with photography the common thread that runs through them all. I love capturing the moment at a gig or in the company of precious wildlife, but also savouring the more considered times in the landscape.
But the greatest artistic satisfaction comes from trying to interpret what I see and what I feel, using abstractive techniques (ICM and multiple exposures) to create something new, fleeting, imagined and unique.
Photography leads me to engage with light, form, colour and moment, from which I hope to create an emotional impression, aspiring to art. I may seldom succeed, but often the dance itself is satisfying in itself.
“It’s not what the Music says, it’s what the Music means.”
Web: www.howardrankinphotography.com
Anita Rama
My imagery reflects the beauty and the connection I feel with the natural world. I like to photograph my surroundings in an abstract and impressionistic style. Creating images is often a self discovery process for me. I often use in camera multiple exposure technique and in camera motion to achieve these results. The freedom and creativity offered by abstract photography is both liberating and invigorating. My hope is that the same emotions carry and invigorate the viewer.
Web: anitaramaphotography.com/
Barb Kreutter
Fractured Expression
Barb Kreutter is a Canadian artist who began her career as a textile designer but has since discovered the abstract expressionist world of photography, creating images that enable her to explore her lifelong love of colour, texture and form.
The nature found in Alberta, where Barb lives, serves as her inspiration. She has been intrigued by how the environment surrounding her makes her feel rather than just how it looks. As a result, she incorporates the patterns and textures from her everyday life to create images that reflect her feelings rather than simply documenting what she sees before her.
Her images are inspired by the frozen mountain lakes, reflections in slushy puddles of melting snow, textures in the land and the subtle beauty of the ever changing colours in the sky above her head. Constructed Landscapes is the culmination of Barb’s reimaging of the world around her.
Web: https://kreutter.zenfolio.com/
Iveta Lazdina
A sidewind
Iveta Lazdina is a Latvian-based photographer. Photography, for me, is an inner conversation. The beauty and diversity of nature are the foundation for dualities; light colors and darkness, smooth lines versus sharp. These contrasts reflect the inner harmony of creation. Therefore, instead of escaping from imperfection, I will accept and incorporate them as an integral part of the duality.
Through multi-exposure and ICM (Intentional camera movement), I am looking to embed these varied layers of internal and external contrasts reflected in colors and shapes as a symbol of the creative processes. To catch the moment, which gives you a fragment of what might be an answer or at times provides an instant of truth, is nature’s greatest gift.
Web: www.yvettaphoto.com
Honey J Walker
Geisha
I am a London based abstract expressionist photographer. My background was in fashion, interior design and textiles, all of which still influence my love of colour and form. All of my previous careers involved extensive travel, and that wanderlust permeates my work, along with an enormous interest and inquisitiveness for the human condition.
Within my photographs, there exists a converging of two scales; the physical world (things in themselves as they are) and the interior world ( that which lies hidden in all things). A synchronism of the eternal and the everyday. My interior world is expressed externally through my lens, the layering of images that find me, that reveal themselves as I work. My subconscious finding oxygen.
All of my work is in some way informed by an emotional response to the here and now or the past, not quite laid to rest.
Web: www.honeyjwalker.com