Charlotte Street Foundation is pleased to present Exhibit Sway: In the Current, a live gallery performance collaboration of Exhibit Sway, a contemporary dance project, and Elijah Gowin, a visual artist and Charlotte Street Visual Artist Award Fellow.

Combining a display of photographic work by Gowin with live dance by Exhibit Sway, In the Current explores the human psyche and aspects of truth, life, and individualism.  Exhibit Sway dancers of the Kansas City Ballet are creating new works inspired by and relating to Gowin’s photographs during a three week workshop leading up to the performance.  During the performances/exhibition, visitors are invited to walk through the gallery, absorbing different perspectives of movement as they relate to Gowin’s images.

Stayce Camparo, curator
Elijah Gowin, visual artist
Choreographers/Dancers: Kansas City Ballet dancers Stayce Camparo, Rachel Coats, Gabriel Davidsson, Logan Pachiarz + Catherine Russell.

The mission of Exhibit Sway is to create gallery-based performances of original choreography that are inspired and shaped by collaboration with local artists and that re-imagine traditional roles of dancer and spectator.

Reception for “Into the Sun” Exhibition at Robert Mann Gallery, NY. Sept. 8, 2011

Also early book previews…

Work is under way on a new monograph set to go to press in late Spring.  Book dummies have been made, proof sheets tested, with just final design touches to be finished.  This Tin Roof Press book is about 130 pages and will include all 3 series “Watering”, “Of Falling and Floating”, and latest series “Into the Sun.”  The introduction is written by Lyle Rexer with book design by Katy Homans.

Updates will appear here as I go on press in Hong Kong and work out details for special editions.
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Elijah Gowin and April Watson juried a show for the Colorado Photographic Arts Center.  The show exhibited the art work of 21 photographers at Edge Gallery in Denver, Colorado. CPAC is a non profit organization focusing on photographic interests. The organization exhibits at various venues in Colorado.  Here is a video of the installation at Edge Gallery and some of the winners.

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Elijah Gowin is a featured artist in The Drawbridge magazine showcasing “Of Falling and Floating” photographs.  The Drawbridge is a quarterly independent magazine based in London that publishes visual art and literature.

Updates will appear here as I go on press in Hong Kong and work out details for special editions.  

The 12th annual In-Sight exhibition and auction is live and accepting online bids through the end of October.  Included in this auction is “Game”, a 10″x13″ silver gelatin print of mine from 2001. A good chance to support a worthwhile photography non-profit that focuses on teaching young students.  More information can be found here.

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NightGallery projections at Foto Week DC, November 6-13.  Photographs will be projected on many venues in Washington, including the exteriors of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and College of Art + Design, Newseum, Holocaust Museum, American Red Cross, National Museum of the American Indian, and the Human Rights Campaign buildings.  Andy Adams at FlakPhoto.com and andyadamsphoto.com will curate the fine art portion of this event with Larissa Leclair and includes a photo from my “Hymnal of Dreams” series.  More information can be found at photoweekdc.org or the press release here.

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Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, Virginia.  Archive Group Exhibition, November 5 to December 4, 2010.  Opening reception Friday November 5th, 7-9 pm.  More information here.

Of Falling & Floating presents two chapters in Elijah Gowin’s newest series of images. The photographs in this exhibition raise questions of doubt and faith in our increasingly polarized society.  Gowin’s subjects are pictured drifting in water or falling through the air, either accepting what is happening to them with grace or reacting instead with panic. A sense of anxiety and mystery pervades the images – who are these people, in what rituals are they engaged, and what led them to these transformative moments? Throughout the series, a multitude of dramas is played out against the backdrop of the natural world – leafy trees, shallow water, and expanses of open sky. As a whole, the series reflects the breadth of human emotion – fear and joy, anger and peace – and expresses the artist’s search for inner balance during a time of global uncertainty.

The images in Of Falling & Floating are created by the artist using a process which combines painstaking hand-crafted techniques with the latest digital imagery technology. Gowin collects amateur photographs through the internet and collages them in multiple layers before printing small paper negatives which are cut by hand and then scanned, causing the paper fibers to become a part of the final distressed image. The photographs appear to be both old and new, confusing to the eye and yet hauntingly familiar.

Robert Mann Gallery

Gowin is captivated by the psychological need for humans to retreat into nature for religious rituals and has chosen the backdrop of contemporary Christian baptism to reflect upon the broader human condition at the turn of the 21st century. Gowin begins his process by collecting amateur, low-resolution digital images of baptisms on the Internet. After gaining permission to use them in his work, he alters the original photo and montages multiple images and backgrounds. A negative is then printed on inkjet paper and scanned, so the paper fiber becomes part of the image. Even though his process takes advantage of up-to-date digital tools such as scanners and Internet search engines, he balances this with elements of craft such as hand-cutting the images making each photograph distinctly imperfect and unique.

Inspired by disparate sources such as Renaissance and Baroque history painting, news media, web blogs and anonymous snapshot photography, Gowin draws upon classic illustrations of human emotions such as despair, joy and fear, to address contemporary narratives and modes of communication. “ Although my artwork begins as a gesture to build meaning and clarity in my own life,” he states, “it reaches its breadth when it does the same for others.”

Brenda Labier, former Curator of Contemporary Arts Center of Virginia

Elijah Gowin is a storyteller. He seeks his narrative in a variety of landscapes but is deeply attracted to environments created by self-taught artist.  These are spaces that have developed and grown over many years, possessing layers of information, revealing truths about the maker and his world, and sometimes ours, not found otherwise.  Gowin has had the opportunity to see these spaces grow and flourish and, as in the case with Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden and Lonnie Holley’s One Acre of Art, change dramatically or disappear completely.  With the camera, Gowin is able to describe and document, but more importantly he isolates themes and possible narratives as well as moments of revelation within these deeply layered, sometimes chaotic installations that offer insight into the work of the artist.

Originally appearing in The Light Work Annual, Contact Sheet 102.  Read the entire Lonnie Holley Introduction by Birmingham Museum of Art Director Gail Treschel here.