(STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.) – BOTANOPHILIA, a group show curated by Cassandra Sohn, featuring contemporary photography by Bruce Checefsky, Amiel Gervers, Yvette Lucas, Mona Mark, Cassandra Sohn, and sculptures by Peter Neff, will be unveiled over a series of weeks, beginning this Friday, May 11, 2012, at Sohn Fine Art Gallery and continuing in coming weeks with openings at Naumkeag on May 28 and at Berkshire Botanical Garden on June 8. There will be a special art crawl and reception for the fully unveiled, three-part exhibition at all locations on Saturday, June 9, 2 – 7pm. (Berkshire Botanical Garden: 2 – 4pm; Naumkeag: 3 – 5pm; Reception at Sohn Fine Art Gallery: 4 – 7pm)
The exhibition features seven artists who use unique and unconventional techniques to create images of botanicals. Bruce Checefsky, filmmaker, photographer, curator and gallery director whose work is in museum collections internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; and the Getty Research Institute, uses a “photo-scanning” process to create hyperrealistic imagery of flora. To achieve the unusual blur and “digital-glitch” features in his images, Checefsky does not manipulate his photographs in Photoshop; he moves a scanner (rather than a camera) over his garden. The images that result possess magnificently rich color and an unusual combination of both extreme flatness and great depth. Checefsky’s work is on view at Sohn Fine Art Gallery and Berkshire Botanical Garden.
Featured at Naumkeag is photographer Yvette Lucas. Lucas approaches trees in the Berkshire landscape as a portrait photographer would her subjects. After she creates her enchanting photographs, her work gets reinterpreted through her printing processes. She produces black and white pigment prints of some, and for others, rich sepia toned photo intaglios (otherwise known as solar plate etchings). This printing process gives each individual print exclusive, one-of-a-kind qualities. Lucas’s work is also on view at Sohn Fine Art and she is teaching photo intaglio printing techniques in a workshop presented by Sohn Fine Art scheduled to run July 7 and 8.
On view at Sohn Fine Art Gallery and Berkshire Botanical Garden, Mona Mark’s hand-toned silver prints of trees are a born from a consistent inquiry in her work about the relationship between man and nature. Mark finds parallels between visual and verbal language by presenting series of multiple images as one piece. As John Weber once said while showing Mark’s work,
“Her images have a power and clarity… Through series… she reduces the complexity of her experience to reductive forms as she continues her ongoing investigations…”
Peter Neff’s sculptural interpretations of tree forms are on view at Berkshire Botanical Garden and Sohn Fine Art Gallery. His hand-built, slab-constructed clay bodies are Anagama wood-fired in a kiln that is built into the hillside. Neff’s firing process takes over 60 hours and produces sculptures that look identical to the natural tree form.
Soft yet graphic, Sohn Fine Art Gallery’s owner and photographer, Cassandra Sohn, and New York based freelance photographer and graphic design artist, Amiel Gervers, are showing vibrant abstract botanical photographs. Both artists have focused on the magnificent macro details of plant-life that we often miss from our larger perspective. Sohn’s work is on view at Sohn Fine Art Gallery and Berkshire Botanical Garden. Gervers work is on view at Berkshire Botanical Garden.
A percentage of sales will benefit the nonprofits Naumkeag (A Trustees of Reservations Property) and Berkshire Botanical Garden.
Exhibition on view at SOHN FINE ART GALLERY: May 11 – July 16, 2012
Exhibition on view at NAUMKEAG: May 28 – July 31, 2012
Exhibition on view at BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN: June 8 – July 16, 2012
Art Crawl & Reception Saturday, June 9th, 2 – 7pm
BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN: 2 – 4pm
NAUMKEAG: 3 – 5pm
Reception at SOHN FINE ART GALLERY: 4 – 7pm
Meet the Artist, Yvette Lucas, Monday, June 18, 10:00 – 5:00
2:30 Talk and demonstration at Naumkeag during Community Day
Workshops
PHOTOGRAPHING BOTANICALS
Instructor: Cassandra Sohn
$195 members; $225 non-members
Saturday & Sunday, June 31 & July 1, 1:00 – 6:00
At Berkshire Botanical Garden. Sign up at 413-298-3926 or www.berkshirebotanical.org
PRINTMAKING FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS – INTAGLIO PRINTS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
Instructor: Yvette Lucas
$200 plus $35 Materials fee
Saturday & Sunday, July 7 & 8, 9:30 – 2:30
At Sohn Fine Art, sign up at 413-298-1025 or info@sohnfineart.com
SOHN FINE ART – GALLERY & GICLEE PRINTING
6 Elm Street, 1B-C; Stockbridge, MA; 413-298-1025; info@sohnfineart.com;