August 1 to August 31, 2014
Artists’ Reception, Saturday August 9, 6-8pm
also DINE/ART BeLo3rd
Dima Gavrysh
Andrea Camuto
Portfolio Showcase
David Gardner and Stan Raucher
Dima Gavrysh
Inshallah
(God Willing in Arabic)
PASAB by Dima Gavrysh
Andrea Camuto
Terrain of Loss: Afghan Exiles in Their Own Land
Zia, Shabana and Mirwais by Andrea Camuto
Portfolio Showcase
Theme: The Documentary Project: Work of Personal, Local, National, International Concerns
David Gardner, Life on Wheels: The New American Nomads
Ralph and Patsy, Campground Hosts, UT by David Gardner
Stan Raucher, Los Israelitas – The New Promised Land
A Sabbath Prayer by Stan Raucher
Dima Gavrysh, Inshallah
Inshallah (God willing in Arabic) is a project that explores the Soviet and American occupations of Afghanistan, and draws on my childhood fantasies that romanticize the military and intertwine with my past and present personal conflicts.
As a Ukrainian who was born and raised in the former Soviet Union, this is the second time that I live in a country that is fighting a war in Afghanistan. I create a dark fairytale filled with my fears and dreams, based on my fascination with the army’s strength and order, set on the front lines of what has become America’s longest running war in history. Mesmerized by the complexity of the Afghan chaos, I strive to better comprehend my personal relationship to these wars: two empires, two mentalities, same battlefield, twelve years apart. (photo: Tangi by Dima Gavrysh)
bio: Since 2009, visual artist Dima Gavrysh has been exploring the American war in Afghanistan through video installation, photography, appropriated imagery and data visualization. In addition to the Davis Orton Gallery, Dima has exhibited his work in solo and featured shows at Circuit Gallery, Toronto, Pictura Gallery, Bloomington IN and (upcoming) Blue Sky Gallery, Portland OR. Among his awards are Tokyo International Photography Festival/winner, Magenta Flash Forward/winner, PDN’s 30 and Critical Mass Top 50. His book Inshallah is forthcoming from Kehrer Verlag (2014).
For the past 12 years Dima has worked as a documentary photographer with major publications and news agencies such as Associated Press, Bloomberg News and Agence France-Presse. He has also worked on multiple projects around the globe, including collaborations with Doctors Without Borders and the United Nations Population Fund and numerous recent embeds with the US Army in Afghanistan. Dima’s work has appeared in a variety of international publications, including New York Times, Stern, Paris Match and Time.
Andrea Camuto
Terrain of Loss: Afghan Exiles in Their Own Land
In 2005, I made the first of a series of trips to Afghanistan, where I began photographing refugees in makeshift living quarters in the war-ravaged remains of the former Russian government buildings of Kabul. Many families had been in exile for years, having fled the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, the internecine Mujahideen wars of the 1990s when Kabul was under siege, or the Taliban. In 2002, Afghans began returning to their homeland from Pakistan and Iran after the fall of the Taliban. Nearly everyone I met expressed great relief and looked forward to peace and a new start.
By 2007, an estimated 4.8 million refugees had come back to Afghanistan. Most could not afford the high rents of Kabul, so they settled where they could, hoping to find work that often never materialized. Feeling great compassion for their struggles, I was compelled to return several times, most recently in 2009. As my ties with these families deepened, I followed them into such places as the women’s hospital and the women’s prison. Each trip furthered my understanding of the political and social complexities of Afghan culture. Entrenched attitudes, coupled with rampant illiteracy, create the oppressive conditions under which Afghan women are forced to live.
In these photographs I call attention to these ordinary Afghans, who go unnoticed and unrecorded in the larger narrative of the conflict in Afghanistan today.
bio: A graduate of the International Center of Photography, Andrea Camuto is a New York City-based photographer whose work explores issues of women and social justice in Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, India and Mali. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the International Center of Photography, Global Fund for Children, the Wilmer Shields Council on Foundations, Photo District News, Critical Mass- Photo Lucida, and Jacob Riis. Andrea has had solo gallery and museum shows in New York City and San Francisco and contributed to numerous group shows internationally. Her first book, Terrain of Loss, was published by El Leon Literary Arts in 2012 and was a winner in the 2013 PDN Photography Annual. She is currently working on a series of portraits in Haiti.
Selected through our Portfolio Showcase Call for Work, the gallery is also featuring portfolios by David Gardner and Stan Raucher.
Honorable Mention:
John Cessna, Lydia Harris, David Hiley, Emma Horning,
Jonah Markowitz, Jérémy Saint-Peyre, Arielle Simmons
David Gardner, Life on Wheels: The New American Nomads
David Gardner looks at those Americans who have willfully traded traditional lifestyles of home and property for a nomadic existence of full-time life on the road in recreational vehicles. Known as “full-timers”, they are most often retired, but some do still work from their RV’s – using the advantage of mobility to increase flexibility and improve prospects.Gardner finds their fierce independence and positivity toward life a compelling argument to the porch and rocking chair. Photographing them in the environment with their rigs – sometimes traveling with them for extended periods – he has a unique look into a lifestyle that breaks down traditional notions of home and retirement. This journey with them has brought him to unexpected realizations of how the older generation has adapted, evolved and embraced the world around them. “It has changed my attitude of who and what I might become as I age.” (above: Beverly, Solo Traveler, AZ by David Gardner)
Bio: David Gardner’s photographs have appeared in group shows at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Griffin Museum of Photography, 4×5 Gallery in San Francisco and Wallspace Gallery’s New Directions showcase, Beautiful My Desire in Santa Barbara, CA. He was a featured artist in Take Me Away, sponsored by the San Francisco Arts Commission and received the 2013 Contemporary Image Maker micro-grant from Photomedia Center. Gardner’s work was the featured portfolio in Society for Photographic Education’s journal, exposure and has appeared in Photomedia Center’s publication Insight Magazine. Online, his photographs have been featured on Tone-Lit, Light Leaked, F-Stop Magazine, and aCurator, among others.
Stan Raucher, Los Israelitas – The New Promised Land
A lengthy journey down the Amazon River leads to a remarkable location that hearkens back to Biblical times. There, in small agricultural communities scattered along the banks of the river, live Los Israelitas, an Evangelical group formed by Ezequiel Gamonal in Lima, Peru, in 1963. This sect blends the beliefs of end-of-days Christian sects with the pageantry of Hollywood cinema. Gamonal, a village shoemaker from southern Peru who enjoyed the movies of Cecil B. DeMille, converted from Catholic to Seventh-day Adventist in the 1950s. Several years later, Gamonal declared that he had been chosen by God to inaugurate the new Israel, and he proclaimed the Amazon rain forest to be the new Promised Land. He formed his own church and many of his followers left their homes throughout Peru to colonize these remote territories and begin a new way of life.
The beliefs of Los Israelitas reflect early Christianity before the time of Constantine. Using their own version of the bible, they follow many of the laws detailed in the Old Testament. They observe the Sabbath on Saturday. Their sanctuaries contain large posters of the Ten Commandments with a small ark at the front of the building. Men do not cut their hair or beards, and women and girls cover their hair with headdresses. They reject many Catholic doctrines and traditions, so there are no crosses or representation of Christ, Mary or Saints to be found anywhere.
(above: Welcoming the Congregation by Stan Raucher)
Bio: Stan Raucher’s work has been shown in eighteen solo exhibits and over sixty juried group exhibitions. He was a CDS/Honickman First book Prize in Photography finalist in 2012 for his Metro series and a Critical Mass finalist in 2012 and 2013. He was featured in LensWork #97 with an interview and his Return to New York series. He was highlighted in Adore Noir magazine #10 with his Avoid Naples! Series. Raucher’s work has also been published in F-Stop Magazine, Camera Arts magazine and Shots magazine. Most recently, he received an Excellence Award in the 2012 Black & White Magazine Portfolio Competition.