Now that's my demographic...Orion Magazine

One of my images from Exit Eden is included in the September/October issue of Orion with an essay by the venerable Derrick Jensen. I am thrilled to be coupled with him on a page again (the last time was via an essay he wrote for my monograph The Time After). Derrick is as clear spoken as he is informed and angry. Even though it must feel like yelling into the wind at times he is tireless and on target. Pick up a copy or better yet get a subscription to this great publication! 

Orion Magazine  

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"The Bus: 29 Hooligans from Chitown"

Tony Fitzpatrick is an artist who brings others work to the public via his referrals, coordinating group shows, and at his zero-commission gallery Firecat Projects. Recently he arranged a group show in LA at La Luz De Jesus Gallery which included two of my pieces.

The premise of the show was a range of talent, many early in their careers, along with some other artists such as Tony himself, me, Tom Torluemke, and others rolling from Chicago to LA in a tour bus experiencing America along the way (and saving on shipping costs). That didn't happen but the show did and it was a blast. They blogged deeply about my work afterward, check it:

http://laluzdejesusgallery.blogspot.com/

 

Current Show: "potpourri" at Linda Warren Projects

My debut show with Linda Warren Projects runs from December 14th, 2012 to February 2nd, 2013. The work is viewable online here as are shots of the installation at LWP- including the time-based sculpture titled “Fountain” documented throughout the run. Here’s the statement about this work:

Potpourri by Doug Fogelson

How ironic is it that in today’s age of ecological crisis humans cultivate exotic flowering plants, castrate their reproductive bloom, and deliver around the planet to commemorate the banal/vital moments of our lives?

My main objective in Potpourri is twofold: the first impulse is to create an installation where the viewer feels an immediate and seductive sensory experience of light, color, and form stemming directly from the actual flower material; the second is to stimulate a deeper consideration of the floral signifier and its related industrial/conceptual/spiritual meaning for the current times. References to Flemish Baroque floral painting, Abstract Expressionism, and the general history of floral depictions in art are implicit in the various presentations of this work.

Photography here is employed via multiple exposure photograms and other techniques of hand touching such as bleached still life photographs and flower “pressings” onto chemically altered sheets of 8x10 inch film. The final prints are made as archival pigment prints in editions of 6 each at the 28” inch high by 22” inch wide size (a larger size is offered in an edition of 3 each).

A central component of the exhibition is the three-tiered fountain sculpture, made of Plexiglas and decorated with a variety of fresh flowers, which is experienced as it wilts over the timeframe of an exhibition. The fountain creates potpourri. Ephemeral aspects of floral life and death are therein linked to a sort of recycling physically via the sculpture and visually in the forms as 2-D representations of the same materials on the walls.

Exit Eden

This body of work was exhibited in Chicago, Aspen, and the Netherlands in 2012. Here is the statement for the series:

Exit Eden addresses concerns about loss caused by climate change or ecocide. My work considers our planet as an "Edenic" paradise while questioning our intellectual and spiritual accountability at the current state of development. Transformative effects of climate change are made visible through the abstraction of dense landscape photography. I photograph natural areas, often using overlapping multiple exposures, and then remove layers of the film's emulsion with chemicals. Partially destroying the image mimics the state of our bedraggled resources, thus the pieces in Exit Eden become tableaux to the disappearing qualities of nature as we once knew it. Representing the issue in this manner confronts the loss of my original images, the analog color transparency, as well. Final prints are archival pigment prints in editions of 6 each, the widths vary but heights are generally between 20”-28” inches high.

Masters, Edits, and Cuts

My concern in the series Masters, Edits, and Cuts is threefold: to honor the magical contribution of the analog recording mediums Magnetic Tape (which served as the original for audio/video/informational recording) and Photosensitive Transparency Film (or slide film); the second is to reflect the process of recording itself between light sensitive material briefly physically touching the magnetic medium; the third is an attempt at visual expressions something akin to the emotional content I derive from sounds and images generally contained by such arcane media.

As the magnetic tape touches the 8 x 10 inch transparency film I appreciate machine honed precision materials as shiny miracles of science. Colored light bouncing off the magnetic tape casts rippled waves and patterns onto the film (as if to confirm the scientific phenomena) in the form and content of the sound and light based media. The tape curls are reminiscent of the roll it comes from and the analog editing process it goes through. These materials physically interact, aided by my hand and colored light in multiple exposures over an additive color mixing process, and then it's time to process the film. What remains is a temporary form revealed, a kind of self-portrait of materials used to communicate so much in the century of our massive industrial and technological growth.

Castings

The Castings series utilizes the processes of entropy and reconciliation in tandem with the photographic instant and its medium. I perform traditional photography in the natural environment- shooting scenes on film over each three-month season. The film is then processed and approximately five prints are scanned to be printed on light sensitive paper as Lambda style C-prints. I return the prints back to the same location where they were photographed and place them either faceup or facedown leaving them out for the following season. Decay and entropy work directly on the prints in the form of radiation, temperature and moisture fluxuations, insects, chemical interactions, and so on until they are collected.

The process often results in a near total abstraction of the two-dimensional images. Direct contact with the ground acts as a stencil or cast whereby nature imprints some of its form directly onto the emulsion. The print surface degrades and begins to decompose as it becomes collaged with parts of the nature it depicts, forcing a type of reconciliation between subject and object. The idea is one of non-human forces in collaboration with myself and the camera to create abstract photographic representations.

I began Castings in the summer of 2009 and documented seasonal changes at the location in Northwest Indiana for nearly two years. The prints were trimmed and encased in airtight Plexiglas vitrines, some still with dirt, leaves, etc, to be assembled in various configurations.