September 5 to October 5, 2014
Artists’ Reception, Saturday September 13, 6-8pm
Wendy Paton
Lear Levin
Wendy Paton
Visages de Nuit
Look at Me, silver gelatin print by Wendy Paton
Lear Levin
Burlesque & Cabaret
Melissa, One Wing Up, 4-color dichromate process print by Lear Levin
Portfolio Showcase
Theme: Night Life in the City – tba – Deadline August 12
Outside or inside; wherever people meet up, express themselves
or just pass each other by.
Wendy Paton, Visages de Nuit
Visages de Nuit is a collection of black and white candid night portraits, shot over a six-year period from 2006-2012 in various international cities. Paton created this series of nocturnal images to explore the mystery of the night and to bring the viewer into her subject’s nighttime world. Captured in a brief moment and seen through the subject’s emotions, these images are meant to explore the many layers of the human personality. Paton observes that people act differently at night. They let their guard down. They become who they really are, or they transform themselves into someone real or imagined; who they want to be. Life seems to become freer flowing as opposed to how people tend to act in the light of day. Her interpretation of these candid moments is further emphasized by the deep contrast and dynamic printing style for this work which conveys the surreal quality of life at night. (above: Thru the Frame, silver gelatin print by Wendy Paton)
bio: Wendy Paton is an award winning American photographer best known for her dramatic, black and white, candid night portraits. Concurrent with this exhibition at the Davis Orton Gallery, the Michener Art Museum, Doylestown PA, is presenting Nuit Blanche comprised of a premiere selection of Visages de Nuite complemented by a collection of her latest series, Reclaiming Dignity, in an installation of seventy of the artist’s silver gelatin prints. Paton’s work has been widely exhibited in gallery and museum venues internationally and is included in notable private and public collections. In 2012 a retrospective of her series of nocturnal portraits, “Visages de Nuit”, was exhibited at the museum at The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, Moscow, Russia, September 4 – November 11,2012.
Paton’s monograph, “Visages de Nuit”, published by Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, was released internationally in September 2012, and in the U.S. May 2013 coinciding with her second solo New York exhibition at Sous Les Etoiles Gallery. The book was nominated for the 2013 German Photo Book Award and the European Author Book Award 2013. Her images have been widely published in the press in the U.S., Europe and Russia appearing in CNN WORLD, Prime Time Russia Today Television, Schwarzweiss Magazine, Moscow News, NightStyle Magazine, Le Journal de la Photographie, and The Photo Review among others.
Lear Levin, Burlesque & Cabaret
Lear Levin’s series of three and four color gum dichromate and platinum/palladium prints, Burlesque & Cabaret, is an evocation of Weimar Berlin and Backstage at ‘Minsky’s,” New York City, circa 1930’s. Levin has always been enthralled by the lure of burlesque. He was a regular at The Old Howard Theater in Boston’s Scully Square in the 1950’s and prior to that, at age 13, he snuck into the Globe Theater in Atlantic City New Jersey. During his college days, as an aspiring filmmaker, he often hung out backstage with the cast at The New Follies Theater on Main Street in Los Angeles, hoping some day to make a film on Burlesque. While he never made that film. when he retired from motion pictures and took up still photography, Platinum and 3 Color Gum Printing, it seemed natural for him to finally explore what the colorful backstage life might have looked like during the old days of Burlesque.
bio: After graduating from The University of Southern California’s Cinema and Drama Schools, and a brief hitch in the US Navy, Lear Levin became a director of award winning documentaries, short films and (literally) thousands of TV commercials, one of which, for Prince Spaghetti, is the longest running in the history of the medium. His motion picture film work is preserved in the permanent collection of such institutions as The Museum of Modern Art in New York and The George Eastman House.
While directing for film and television, Levin also continued his personal vision of fine art photography. His regard for the past as well as his feel for archival, textural printing techniques led him to the darkroom where he finishes his work using methods such as Gum Dichromate and Platinum/Palladium to create the hand-made images reminiscent of late nineteenth and early twentieth century photography.
Levin has exhibited his work at Iris Gallery in Boston, Moss & Moss Gallery in San Francisco and in a group show at CCCA gallery, Hudson NY. His three and four color gum dichromate and platinum prints will be featured at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester MA in October 2014.
Selected through our Portfolio Showcase Call for Work, the gallery will also feature portfolios by two photographers responding to the call for work: Nightlife
Theme: Night Life in the City – tba – Deadline August 12
Outside or inside; wherever people meet up, express themselves
or just pass each other by.