THE EXAMINER - JULY 5, 2009
A PHOTOGRAPHIC CONVERSATION
BY MADELINE MCCULLOUGH
Wichita cultural events
If you go: CENTER GALLERY
What: Two exhibitions in conversation.
Where: Center Gallery, 111 Ellis
When: Works on display through August 21st. Gallery hours noon-6 p.m. each Friday, or by appointment. Call 316-269-1250.
How much: Admission free. Many works for sale.
For more information, email info@centergalleryonline.com
Photographer Linda Robinson thinks of her camera as a box that holds memories. “Literally,” she says breaking into a wide smile, “I am putting memories into a box.” Robinson has retrieved an interesting collection of memories from that box for her two solo photography shows, on display simultaneously at two downtown galleries through July 24 in Wichita, Kan.
Finally having her own show at Center Gallery, the gallery she owns and manages in Wichita’s Douglas Design District, “Destination” is a collection of six large-scale landscapes and seascapes with two slightly smaller photographs including a self-portrait. A few blocks away Robinson’s show, “Horizon,” is comprised of smaller photographs at the Jones Gallery, a venue inside Positive Directions in the heart of Wichita’s art district. Robinson says the two photography shows of minimalist landscapes and seascapes are “in conversation” with each other.
Telling a story as subtle as the photographs themselves, six 30-inch-square photographs hang side-by-side in "Destination" at Center Gallery. Four of the six large-scale photographs share a common horizon line – an integral part of Robinson’s story. Three of the photographs capture movement in blurry imagery. Horizon lines and movement speak directly to Robinson’s aesthetic experience.
"The six photographs in this show are about searching for what’s on the horizon – not only in the photographs themselves, but in life, too,” she says. “A photographer is always looking to capture a scene and an artist is always looking to the future.” Robinson’s looking into the future is captured in the photographs with horizon lines as subject matter. The work and momentum of searching for that ideal horizon is portrayed in the three blurred photographs.
Working with a medium-format Hasselblad camera, Robinson says, “I like to capture on film the feeling of the places I’ve called home.” Robinson has called Kansas home most of her life and the terrain of the first photograph, “Kansas Landscape, Reno County, Kansas,” will be familiar to anyone in the Midwest. A barely blue, almost white sky and a deep green wheat field share the composition equally. A typically clear Kansas horizon line splits the photograph in two and addresses the clarity with which Robinson views her native Kansas. She says the photograph is actually about movement. “I like to stand at the edge of a wheat field and watch the wind in the wheat.” She points out that wheat breaks in waves, like the sea. This will not be the last time Robinson points out the topographical similarities between Kansas and California landscapes.
Continuing that same horizon line into the next identically sized photograph, “Driving Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California,” is a streak of green and orange ice plants on the side of the highway. Robinson says, “These driving shots have to do with the transitory nature of being in California. Although it was home for four years, being in grad school I knew I was just passing through.” Indeed. A hand-held camera shooting from a moving car has created a blur of coastal vegetation that expresses beautifully the experience of just passing through.
Back to the calm of the first photograph and picking up the horizon line again, “Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California” is a study in whites. In the show, this photograph is the most minimalist as the white-overcast sky and white descending fog obscure the vanishing horizon line in the white ocean’s distance. Waves crest and break in splashes of white and roll over the white sand into the foamy white foreground. Printing an all-white photograph is always difficult and this study of white on white on white, printed masterfully, is testimony to Robinson’s technical skill.
“Pacific Coast Highway, Half Moon Bay, California,” is another photograph shot from a moving car. “The car window acts as viewfinder for me,” Robinson says. Her technique, of hand-holding a camera out the window and waiting for her moment, just the right clump of trees in this case, works beautifully. Clearly looking up the highway, Robinson says this photograph speaks to the excitement of getting closer and closer to San Francisco.
Just as “Ocean Beach” was a study in whites, “Muir Beach Overlook, Marin County, California,” is a study in aquamarines. Maybe it takes the eye of a flatlander from Kansas to appreciate fully the magic of getting above a landscape and changing the vantage point from which it is seen. There is more than the color that is mesmerizing about “Muir Beach Overlook,” Taken from a cliff in Muir Woods and looking out at the Pacific ocean, the high vantage point helped Robinson capture the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. This photograph looks deep into the cloud-filled sky and far out, into the haze-obscured, empty sea. The barely discernible horizon, again picking up the horizon line of Robinson’s first and third photographs, brings us back to a feeling of calm.
The final print in the series, “Eucalyptus Trees, San Francisco, California” is another photograph taken from a moving car. This photograph speaks to movement again and the transitory nature of modern experience and Robinson’s own searching within the city for a horizon line. In this sixth photograph our journey with Robinson is complete. We’ve gone from the waving wheat fields of Kansas to the Presidio in San Francisco, where city, land and sea collide. Robinson says she looks at the last print and remembers the overwhelming fragrance of the eucalyptus trees.
Robinson explains that being from Kansas, whether she is in a city or the mountains she is always looking for a horizon line. Speaking of the Kansas experience Robinson says, “We get out of the city and we can see forever. Some find that disturbing. I find it calming.” In this show every-other photograph jumps back to the calming composition with the horizon line, clear or obscured, splitting the composition in half. Looking at the clear Kansas horizon or the obscured San Francisco horizon Robinson says, “I couldn’t find any other aesthetic that spoke to me.” In “Destination,” calm imagery interspersed with the blurriness of every-other photograph reminds the viewer that to find a horizon involves a search.
“I am always looking for that minimalist view,” Robinson says. And this is what “Destination,” at Center Gallery has captured. But, a few blocks away, “Horizon” Robinson’s solo show at the Jones Gallery features smaller photographs that address the search for those views and rely on more of what Robinson calls the snapshot genre to speak to people. “When I back up a bit from those minimalist views it shows the experience of being there,” she says. Indeed this collection of smaller prints is still a comparative study of California and Kansas. But in many of these prints we are more aware of the photographer being in the environment. “These images are about driving the Pacific Highway. They have a different aesthetic than the formalist view of the photographs in ‘Destination’” Robinson says.
Robinson says of her time in California, “I would need to get away from grad school so I would find a peaceful place to sit and get mesmerized by the waves and then the light coming through the cresting waves. I wanted to capture that color and that movement.” “Wave Sequence,” 1 through 5, does that in spades. Seeing the series and the movement of the ocean on the beach, we are more aware of the photographer’s presence in the landscape.
The comparison in landscapes continues throughout the show. Looking up in Hollywood, Robinson photographs the quintessential Los Angeles image – the tops of palm trees. Looking up in Sedgwick County, Kan., an electric pole and electric wires covered with birds is the iconic image. The show jumps back and forth comparing the two experiences beautifully – Kansas and California. Ultimately, we sense a bit of belonging and a disorientation in both the Kansas images and the California images.
The two shows, “Destination” at Center Gallery and “Horizon” at the Jones Gallery are in conversation with each other. In them, Robinson explores the intermittent blurriness of a continued search and the clarity of reaching a destination and finding that horizon line. In the end, Robinson says, “The act of getting to the ideal horizon through photographing the traveling renders the experience to be the destination,” Robinson says. “Something is always out on the horizon. I am interested in the psychological implications of the unknown horizon and the prospect of the future.”
Linda Robinson explores her environments looking for ideal horizons as a way to engage with her surroundings. She saves her memories into a box in the form of photographs. Through her photography, Robinson shares the journey with us. In doing so, the conversation is now not just between the artist and her environment, the past and the future, the two states – Kansas and California, or between the two shows – “Destination” and “Horizon.” The conversation now includes us.
Center Gallery is the located in Wichita’s Douglas Design District and is dedicated to exploring the medium of photography. The gallery promotes an appreciation and understanding of contemporary photography and its evolving role in current culture through the organization and presentation of exhibitions for emerging and mid-career artists. The exhibitions are exciting and innovative and effectively engage regional, national and international audiences.
For more info: Linda Robinson photography.
Center Gallery, Wichita, Kan.,
The Jones Gallery, Wichita, Kan.
CLICK HERE to continue reading on Examiner.com A photographic conversation. - Wichita cultural events | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/cultural-events-in-wichita/a-photographic-conversation#ixzz1XWgnm8ZH
