Beauty in the Mundane Optical: Beauty in the Mundane, on view from June 17-September 10, 2010. The exhibition is comprised of photographs created by the top five finalists of the 2009 Annual Optical Juried Competition, which is now in its 3rd year. Curated by Sarah Stout, Assistant Director of Rick Wester Fine Art, the exhibition features both small and large-scale black & white and color photographs that respond to the 2009 theme, "Beauty in the Mundane".
About the 2009 Finalists
Nadia Kyung Chae
First place winner Nadia Kung Chae uses x-ray photography fused with the ancient medium of traditional Korean ink-and-wash painting to reveal, explore and shed light on the hidden and organic elements in everyday technological objects. A native of South Korea, Chae received an M.F.A., Photography at Jungang University. Chae has exhibited throughout Asia at the Busan Museum of Art, Busan, Korea; Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore; and The National Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand.
Matt Gehring
Second place winner, Matt Gehring's photographs juxtapose the sky with tangible man-made surfaces in order to draw attention to how depth and space are visualized on paper. Gehring completed his BFA in 2005 from Ohio University before receiving his MFA in Imaging Arts at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2008. His work has been exhibited at venues throughout the U.S. including the Visual Arts Center, Portsmouth, Virginia; FLASH gallery, Lakewood, Colorado; SPAS Gallery, Rochester, New York; and Big Car Gallery, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Pattiann Koury
Pattiann Koury's series, Watermelon Hatchet and Bunny Fur attempts to mediate the family experience, which is replete with both comfort and cruelty. Turning the lens onto worn and injured everyday objects within the domestic setting, she highlights the vulnerability within familial territory. Koury lives and teaches photography in the Bay Area. She studied photography at Rhode Island School of Design and the California Institute of the Arts, graduating from the latter with a BFA in 1994. She was born in North Carolina and often returns there to photograph.
Jeremy Sachs-Michaels
Sachs-Michaels' series, titled So Much Depends on a Red Wheelbarrow, a line borrowed from a William Carlos Williams poem, explores personal and collective memory. Sachs-Michaels graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design where he won the T.C. Colley Award for excellence in photography. He has apprenticed with George Lange and Massimo Vitali, and has created work and taken part in projects all over the world.
Magda Biernat
The Inhabited series captures elements of the built environment in 17 countries. By approaching her subject matter in terms of pure geometric form, cultural variances begin to fall away. A native of Poland, Biernat received her BA in Photography in 2002 from Wielkopolska School of Photography while completing an MA in Marketing and Management at A. Mickiewicz University (both in Poznan, Poland). She is currently pursuing an MA in New Media, Transart Institute, Berlin/New York, to be completed in 2011.
