EXHIBITION #1
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
THE FALL OF ICARUS by Bastien Soleil
(Click on image for larger view)

It is from behind a lens that Bastien Soleil, an underwater artist, expresses his art and his talent. Having received multiple international awards for his short film “Tang’O”, he is inspired by freedom and the quest for self-knowledge. His black and white shots highlight the raw beauty of his models, a technique that he has developed during countless freedives; his parallel life to photography.

Born in the center of France, it was in Asia that Bastien Soleil officially met the sea. There, a love story started that bears fruit still today. It was after multiple adventures around the globe in a frantic search for happiness that Bastien received the undeniable “call of the sea”. A call so strong, that it pushed him to become a freediving instructor. This has allowed him to explore and apply the complexity of his compositions both above and underwater, with exquisite effect. All his work is done in a natural, underwater environment, without any trickery or artificial light. His work reflects his personality, free and without artifice.

As Commander Jacques-Yves Cousteau rightly said, “The sea, once it has cast its spell, holds one forever in its net of wonder”, a net into which Bastien Soleil has voluntarily dived and where he will take you safely and gently by the hand.

Icarus, son of Daedalus, , driven by a desire for freedom and wanting to escape imprisonment, flies with the help of wings made of wax. Coming too close to the Sun, they melt. Icarus falls into the sea and drowns... Here, he is embodied by a woman with two palm leaf wings which gradually fold up, along with her body, as the photographs progress, her contours poetically caressed by the light of the Sun.
"In recent years, I have often felt like Icarus, proud and sometimes arrogant, with a strong desire to touch the sky. Falling hurt me. But life, like the Sun, does not act against us. It reacts to our actions to help us understand who we are and what our path is. I am very grateful to life and my heart for showing me that true light does not shine like a diamond. Instead, it is hidden in simplicity, silence, and love," muses Bastien Soleil.


www.bastiensoleil.comwww.instagram.com/bastien_soleil
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
THE FLIGHT OF ICARUS by Bastien Soleil
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
THE RISE OF ICARUS by Bastien Soleil
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
THE SPLIT by Brenton Hamilton
FIRST PLACE

Review by curator Lori Pond:
"I picked Brenton Hamilton’s “The Split” as the first-place winner in the competition. There is a wavy dividing line in the image—to me, everything above the line represents consciousness, and below the line represents the subconscious mind.

Hamilton uses a mysterious visage that is repeated throughout his work that adds to the unreality of the scene, while giving all his work a feeling of continuity amidst the fantastical."

Pond asks Hamilton: "Your use of the inscrutable face repeats throughout your work, and I’m wondering what meaning you put on that, and what was the impetus to use that face?"

Hamilton: "Thanks, that reference really is important. Sometimes referred to in the studio here as: "The Little Face" it is a frequent motif and perhaps a surrogate - so it functions as a self portrait and symbolic gesture. An element that floats amongst my work - soft features, ambiguous, aloft.  A traveller on a surrealist journey, especially throughout the night hours pursuing freedom."

Pond: "There’s a lot more going on below the dividing line than above it. Can you elucidate for the viewer what kind of worlds we’re looking at?"

Hamilton: "I know that I am always cultivating ambiguity in these photographic works. So a liminal space - the "in between", ocean/sky, above/below, darkness/light, joy/sorrow, real/not real. I like that idea of the gloaming time of day (in between again) and dichotomies without a real place, only possibilities - stirring our imaginations."

Pond: "There are so many interpretations that can be laid over your work—I’m curious to know your relationship to the animal world and how that relates to your usage of animal depictions in The Split."

Hamilton: "Also a perfect read on my pursuits in these pictures, so thank you. I'm very interested in "histories". Animals often find themselves in paintings and provide hidden meanings, or imply other narrative possibilities which is very motivating for me.

For example an ostrich in early meanings and symbols was referred to as an iron eater - and a beast that could consume iron and glass ! Symbolising resilience - and that's a potent meaning for me. The bird/animals in my picture, The Split are not directly a depiction of an ostrich ! But I often assign meanings like that in a kind of complex personal dictionary. I use history and research to inform my works."

A little about Brenton Hamilton:
Hamilton says, "My creative work is print based images, using photographic printmaking techniques of a wide range - almost all from the 19th century.

These kinds of  printmaking methods allow me to use color and tone and create an atmosphere of the “other” where I create embellished stories of a faraway land with recurring figures and faces all played out against a darkened blue black background. A mise en scene, a theater for these unusual pictures. Asking juxtapositions to merge with the plausible and the fantastical. I collect images and refashion these fragments and pieces into new possibilities, directing the viewer to the “outside” of their experience. 

My own influences remain constant and I am engaged and influenced by surrealism, dreams, the occult, Romanticism and the gesture of paint and surfaces found in other forms. Seeking other possibilities and dreamscapes for a viewer to fall under a brief spell. A visual precipice to contemplate and wonder."

Hamilton is a leading educator in photography - a historian and printmaker, devoted to the so-called alternative processes. After decades at Maine Media Workshops he's now a lecturer at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. He lectures widely on the medium and its craft and visual culture.


Cloud Dream is for sale: 
$1,400.00,
white wood framed, approx 9x10"
Unique cyanotype collage on Platine

All Other Images: NFS

instagram.com/brentonhamilton
www.brentonhamilton.com
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
CLOUD DREAM by Brenton Hamilton
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
FRESCO by Brenton Hamilton
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
HOMERS DREAM by Brenton Hamilton
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
LITTLE FACE by Brenton Hamilton
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
THE CONFESSION by David Knox
BEST SERIES

David Knox says of his series 'The Portrait Collages', "These collages, set in the mid 19th century American South, are created from 3 centuries of photography and reference the portraits of both European court paintings and early American folk art. The cryptic stories of the characters, trapped in a netherworld,  are unriddled by symbolism, giving insight into themes of survival, nature, sexuality, spirituality, and death. 

My interests lie in the flawed processes and haunting subjects found in the daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes and carte de visites of early photography. The rigid poses and pensive expressions, the formal attire, the lush landscapes, and the architectural ruins become the elements I use to tell their stories. 

In this process I extract fragments from historic photographs and imagery and then combine them with elements from my own photography.  The final collage containing dozens of layers is merged together and printed onto brushed aluminum. Bio:
David Knox has traveled throughout the American South documenting the region for 30 years. His current work combines his photography with historic imagery to create large scale, multi layered, digital photo collages in the realm of historical fiction."

Knox completed his MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005 and his work has been shown in galleries and museums throughout the South. In 2018 he won the Louisiana Contemporary Best in Show and Helis Foundation Art Prize at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. In 2019 he was awarded the Fine Art Photographer of the Year by the International Photography Awards and his series, The Lost Prophets, won first place in the digital collage category. 

He was also selected as a finalist in the LensCulture Visual Storytelling Awards. In 2020 he had two pieces selected to be included in the Louisiana Contemporary exhibit at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. In 2021 he was selected as a finalist in The Critical Mass Awards.  He has taught photography through continuing education since 1996 and currently is an instructor at the Houston Center for Photography. He is represented in Louisiana by Cole Pratt Gallery in New Orleans.

IMAGES FOR SALE-


The Confession - 40"H x 30"W
Archival aluminum print
$1,850 with 3/4" float bracket on back
Limited edition of 12
Signed on back


The Visitation - 40"H x 30"W
Archival aluminum print
$1,850 with 3/4" float bracket on back
Limited edition of 12
Signed on back



Willy - 40"H x 30"W
Archival aluminum print
$1,850 with 3/4" float bracket on back
Limited edition of 12
Signed on back



Contact David Knox -  Knoxphoto@gmail.com

www.knoxphoto.comwww.instagram.com/davidknoxphoto


 
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
THE VISITATION by David Knox
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
WILLY by David Knox
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
CANEFIELD by David Knox

IMAGES FOR SALE-

Canefield - 30"H x 40"W
Archival aluminum print
$1,850 with 3/4" float bracket on back
Limited edition of 12
Signed on back



The Drawing Room - 40"H x 30"W
Archival aluminum print
$1,850 with 3/4" float bracket on back
Limited edition of 12
Signed on back



The Precipice - 30"H x 40"W
Archival aluminum print
$1,850 with 3/4" float bracket on back
Limited edition of 12
Signed on back


Contact David Knox -  Knoxphoto@gmail.com

www.knoxphoto.comwww.instagram.com/davidknoxphoto
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
THE DRAWING ROOM by David Knox
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
THE PRECIPICE by David Knox
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
AMBIVALENCE by Frank Curran

Frank Curran says, "Windows, with their reflections, can become portals to new worlds.  As a street photographer, I often include people in my images of the urban environment. But when I began this on-going project, in early 2020, the streets were empty. In a fortuitous way, this condition forced me to look within – within windows, storefronts, and at reflections. It also freed me to look within myself – to try and find meaning and interest in a world more narrowly focused than what I was accustomed to. The practice of walking and looking with my camera kept me curious. It allowed me a new way of seeing. I found mystery, sadness, wonder, longing, hope, beauty and most importantly, a way to engage.

The results of these new worlds captured in the photographs may not be easily explained - but each contain their own unique logic, connected by some mysterious thread in my subconscious mind."

 A graduate of Hunter College and Boston University, early in Frank’s career he studied creative photography with Carl Chiarenza, Stephan Gersh and Chris Enos. He has continued his studies by taking workshops with Emily Belz and Vaughn Sills at the Griffin Museum of Photography.

An assignment photographer for more than 40 years, Frank’s personal photography has begun to take its place alongside his commercial work.

Frank has exhibited work in two person shows at the Trident Bookseller Café on Newbury Street in Boston, and The Brookline Public Library and has appeared in group shows at the Davis/Orton Gallery in Hudson, NY, the A Smith Gallery in Johnson City TX, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Arts, the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA, the Bromfield Gallery in Boston, the Black Box Gallery in Portland OR, the Praxis Gallery in Minneapolis and a Juror’s Choice Award for his image, “Strolling Through the Light Industrial Zone” from the Southeast Center of Photography in Greenville, SC

www.frankcurranphoto.com
www.instagram.com/frankcurran
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
ESCAPE by Frank Curran
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
MASK by Frank Curran
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
OPTICAL ILLUSION by Frank Curran
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
REFLECTIONS by Frank Curran
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
CHECK PULSE, RUN STRAIGHT THROUGH 2 by Hana Mendel

Hana Mendel says, ‘Ferocity Adorned’ is a contemplation on the challenges of assimilation through playful vignettes. Inspired by the archetypal fool, I create caricatures of my silent contemplations on womanhood and secular vs religious upbringing. Using softening my subconscious, the image-making process becomes a compulsory ritual wherein I attempt to disarm and dissect repression and neuroses in costume.

Influenced by the fantastical language of Judaism and the spiritualist involvement in early modernism, the camera is both my medium of creative discipline and of spiritual mediation, reflective of an inner and outer truth. After printing my photographs and physically altering them, they are rephotographed in sunlight and embedded with an entirely unknowable and impenetrable reality."

Hana Mendel (b.1996) is a photographer based in Manhattan, NY. She earned a BFA in Photography at Columbus College of Art & Design and a diploma in Publishing from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Hana works predominantly in conceptual photo-illustration and narrative photojournalism, and her work has been featured in publications including The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Wall Street Journal, GQ, Wired, and VICE.

www.hanamendel.comwww.instagram.com/hanamendel
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
DEPRECIOUS 2 by Hana Mendel
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
DINNER AND A SHOW 2 by Hana Mendel
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
DUST BUNNY IN KID CORNER 2 by Hana Mendel
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
FEROCITY ADORNED 2 by Hana Mendel
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
SOUND OF STAGNANCY 2 2 2 by Hana Mendel

L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
ALLEY by Igal Stulbach
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
BIG by Igal Stulbach
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
BIRD by Igal Stulbach

Igal Stulbach Is a visual artist making photography, documentary films and video art. He is exploring the borders between those fields. Born in Krakow Poland in the year 1949 to Holocaust survivors, now living in Bat Yam near Tel Aviv. 

In the year 2015 he made a documentary film about Holocaust second generation named “Group portrait” ( Short monologues by second-generation Holocaust survivors) which was broadcast on Israeli national TV -channel 10 and screened in several cinematheques. His video art and photography works have been shown in exhibitions in Israel and abroad.

In December 2022 Igal was awarded with Gold in the category Portfolio/Fine Art at Tokyo International Foto Awards. (TIFA)       

www.stulbach.com
 
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
CAROUSEL by Igal Stulbach
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
CHAIRS by Igal Stulbach
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
WINDOWS by Igal Stulbach

L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
TWIN ARROWS by J Jason Lazarus
HONORABLE MENTION

J. Jason Lazarus says of "Western Consumption", "“Progress”, as so many of us like to call it, has left the American West a dump site for yesterday’s best intentions. Fragile skeletons of our collective hopes and dreams no longer merely litter the landscape, but have begun to form infected, incurable lesions.

With resources outstretched, urban sprawl devours what is left of pristine wilderness as irreparable climate change burns, floods and decimates the last records of a land once full of infinite splendor. When we think of the West, how should we define it, and where should we place value for it? Should we yearn for the “simpler times” that were anything but, or mourn the misguided hopes and dreams that left it in such squalor… or should we act immediately to drastically change this destructive course that threatens to erase everything it is?"

J. Jason Lazarus is an Alaska-based photographer and educator that creates handmade and narrative-driven photographic work utilizing a wide range of alternative and historical photographic processes.

Lazarus has served as a photographic educator at the University of Alaska Fairbanks since 2005, teaching and developing a wide range of courses in digital, alternative and traditional darkroom photography.

His alternative process work ranges from abstract Chemigram prints that discuss the complex historical legacy left behind by World War II to darkroom-printed Mordançage images that show a fragile Western American landscape decaying under the pressures of resource development, economic failures and climate change.

Lazarus also spends the lengthy, dimly-lit winter months in Alaska creating unique portraits of its fragile tundra with his Fujifilm x100F digital camera, finding an uncanny beauty among its bleak northern latitudes, as seen in his series entitled “Resilient”.

Lazarus has exhibited his work at the Museum of the North (Fairbanks, Ak.), Portland’s Blue Sky Gallery, New York’s SoHo Photo, the Bathhouse Cultural Center (Dallas, Tx), Vermont’s Photoplace Gallery, and the Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, Co.), among many others.

His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at institutions of higher learning including Millikin University, University of La Verne, Oregon State University, University of Wyoming, and Black Hills State University. His work was selected for participation in the 2021 Pingyao International Photography Exhibition in China and the 2017 PhotoLA Art Fair in Los Angeles. Lazarus’ work has been recently published in Analog Forever Magazine, Seities, and the Hand Magazine, along with being featured and interviewed by Petapixel and Catalyst Interviews.

IMAGES FOR SALE:

Twin Arrows - 11x14''
Mordançaged Silver Gelatin Print
$1500 original 1/1 framed print
(Digital Prints available for $250)
Signed on back


Bryce Canyon, Wall Street - 11x14''
Mordançaged Silver Gelatin Print
$1500 original 1/1 framed print
(Digital Prints available for $250)
Signed on back


Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach - 11x14''
Mordançaged Silver Gelatin Print
$1500 original 1/1 framed print
(Digital Prints available for $250)
Signed on back


Contact: J. Jason Lazarus
lazarus@obscura-works.com

www.obscura-works.comwww.instagram.com/obscuraworksak
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
BRYCE by J Jason Lazarus
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
HAYSTACK by J Jason Lazarus
L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
SAGUARO by J Jason Lazarus

Saguaro - 11x14''
Mordançaged Silver Gelatin Print
$1500 original 1/1 framed print
(Digital Prints available for $250)
Signed on back


Vasquez Rocks - 11x14''
Mordançaged Silver Gelatin Print
$1500 original 1/1 framed print
(Digital Prints available for $250)
Signed on back


Very Large Array - 11x14''
Mordançaged Silver Gelatin Print
$1500 original 1/1 framed print
(Digital Prints available for $250)
Signed on back

Contact: J. Jason Lazarus
lazarus@obscura-works.com

www.obscura-works.com
www.instagram.com/obscuraworksak
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L.A. Photo Curator: Global Photography Awards - 'Where Photography & Philanthropy Meet' EXHIBITION #1
VASQUEZ by J Jason Lazarus