JOINT GALLERY EXHIBITION
Reclaim Photography Festival 2016
Reclaim Photography West Midlands came into being following conversations with our Sweden members, and subsequently led to an invitation to organise this first international artistic project.
The concept of Reclaim Photography began in Sweden during 2011 through a group of photographers who wanted to inspire people, take art photography back to the streets and public spaces, spread photography as an art form, and create a new visual language in our everyday environments.
On Saturday 16 April 2016, we reclaimed public spaces across the West Midlands at the: Black Country Living Museum, Dudley; Grand Central, Birmingham; and the Harrison Learning Centre, Light House Media Centre and Mander Centre Wolverhampton, displaying prints from regional and international photographers.
This unique joint gallery exhibition hosted by the Long Gallery and Wolverhampton Art Gallery, aimed to offer the public a unique opportunity to see a selection of photographs by UK and internationally exhibiting artists from Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Sweden and USA. The exhibition showcased a selection of framed limited edition and signed hand prints from internationally renowned and emerging art photographers, including fine art, landscape, mixed-media, photo-journalism, portraiture and social documentary photography. Please find a small selection from this exhibition on display here.
Prints from this gallery exhibition and our one day event were auctioned by Will Farmer, Fieldings Auctioneers, in support of Ladies Fighting Breast Cancer. The auction was not for profit and was not publicly funded.
Paul Biddle ‘Incubation’
15” x 15.5” signed Hahnemuhle Photorag archival pigment print
Paul Biddle
Born in 1952, Birmingham, England.
“Some pictures are simple and complete inside my head from the beginning, but most of my images start with the inspiration of the objects themselves. It may be something found in a junk shop, washed up on the beach near my home or something from my past, such as wooden letters from a childhood game or my palette from art school days.” www.paulbiddle.com
Daniel Wirgård ‘Her Studio’
18cm x 24cm signed selenium toned hand print on Neobrom fibre paper
Daniel Wirgård works in Gothenburg, Sweden. He specialises in portraiture and children, as well as documentary photography.
“This is from a series about my mother and is an ongoing project. The photographs contributed to Reclaim Photography West Midlands 2016 are taken from before her treatment for cancer. This photograph is from her studio (she is a painter) which is abandoned due to her illness. We don’t think she will be able to fight this one off…”
Sadly, Daniel’s mother passed away during the project and we offer our sincere condolences to Daniel and his family during this difficult time. www.wirgard.com
Rinzing Kelsang ‘Untitled’
12” x 8” digital C-type on Kodak Endura paper
Rinzing Kelsang is a Midlands photographer based in Nottingham. His main focus is street photography and he runs workshops and projects across the city.
All of his images are untitled, as he prefers to leave the subjects open to interpretation. www.rinzingkelsang.com
M. Judit Horváth ‘Other World 1994’
10” x 8” digital C-type on Kodak Endura paper
M. Judit Horváth (1952) who after falling in love with her husband, fell in love with his work. She was reluctant to accept her identity for a long time, and yet eventually she became the chief editor of a Romani paper, Amaro Drom for several years. The two of them photographed practically all the gypsy settlements in Hungary, and ghetto-like parts of the districts in Budapest.
After that she worked on a long term project Csalóka látszat/Simulacrum; small objects with macro objectives, culminating in an exhibition and book publication.
In 2011 she became ill with cancer. She started photographing herself and documented this difficult period in her life. In 2012, she exhibited ‘Private Pictures’ in slideshow format at Mai Manó Hungarian House of Photography, Budapest.
In 2015 she followed Private Pictures documenting her mother’s life in a nursing home until her death. These images were exhibited at Random Galerie, Budapest, November 2015.
She is a member of the National Union of Hungarian Journalists and the Alliance of Hungarian Photographers. She is currently working on a freelance basis. staltergyorgy.hu
Ulf Fågelhammer ‘Flying’
9”x 13” signed print on fine art Baryta 325 paper
Ulf Fågelhammer is a respected fine art photographer and a member of Reclaim Photography, Sweden. He successfully organises international collaborations, exhibitions and projects, mostly in digital presentation format. He is also the founder and editor of 591 Photography Blog www.591photography.com.
Ksenija Spanec ‘Calm After the Storm’
15” x 15” pinhole photograph Fuji Velvia 50, digital C-type on Kodak Endura paper
“I was born in 1966, in Zagreb, Croatia, where I still live and work. From as far as I can remember I always liked observing photographs, but never tried it myself, until I bought my first digital camera. At first, my favourite subjects were my children and my dog…but then I realised that photography interested me as an art form. In a very slow process, that lasted from 2005 until now, I changed the way I see, feel and think about photography. I also changed the way I take photographs. Almost completely I abandoned digital photography.
Although my portfolio is quite versatile, the main and preferred subjects are flowers and plants, which I photograph using painting with light technique and old film cameras, including a pinhole camera, Yashica Mat 124g, Nikon FM2 and Pentacon Six.” ksenijaspanec.zenfolio.com
Michael Kirchoff ‘Transfiguration Cathedral Compound, Kizhi’
11” x 8.5” signed archival pigment print on Epsom exhibition fibre paper limited edition 9/20
Michael Kirchoff has a passion and addiction for photography that surpasses the tools used to make pictures. The latest digital technology, to the film based toy camera, to long expired Polaroid materials, are all instruments used in creating this art. Forging the dramatic image is the essence of that passion. His work can be recognized by a timeless and ethereal quality where the imperfections of the subject, camera, or technique are often highlighted as an integral part of the image. Michael resides in Los Angeles, CA, but travels the world to make unique and compelling pictures whenever possible. www.michaelkirchoff.com
Atsushi Fujiwara ‘Butterfly Had a Dream’
14” x 11” signed artist proof hand Baryta print
Book: ‘Butterfly Had a Dream’ 2014 SOKYUSHA
Atsushi Fujiwara, born in 1963, Shiga, Japan, is a photographer and founder of ‘ASPHALT’ magazine with Japanese legendary photo editor Akira Hasegawa who has also edited books of Fukase, Moriyama, Araki and others.
This image is one of the key images of the photo book “Butterfly had a dream” 2014 SOKYUSHA.
The child in the photo is the daughter of a young woman who has been declared mentally unstable following a series of misfortunes, including the suicide of her father, an entomologist. This fragile woman, a bondage master in Tokyo, has made the decision to hand over her children to the care of her mother, who lived on the island of Miyako Jima.
In “Butterfly had a dream”, her eye, and the eye of the night butterfly, are beginning to combine with her late father’s gaze.
This image was selected as a finalist for the Photography Award in the “2015 Photobook Melbourne” and was also in the art box “WOMBAT #16” in 2015 with William Klein. atsushifujiwara.com
György Stalter ‘Other World 1990’
10” x 8” digital C-type on Kodak Endura paper
György Stalter was born in Budapest. He started taking photographs while attending the Franciscan grammar school in Esztergom. After the matura examination, he received a qualifying degree in photography and started to work as a photo reporter for the press.
From 1978, he was a member of the Young Artists’ Studio of Photography and secretary thereof between 1983 and 1986. He worked as a photo reporter and columnist for the weekly Magyar Ifjúság between 1978 and 1988. He has been a member of the Association of Hungarian Photographers and Art Fund since 1983. He worked as a photo reporter for the weekly Képes 7 for two years from 1988. He has been a freelance photographer since 1990.
Between 1990 and 1995 he published photographs at Amaro Drom (Roma magazine for Hungary) while working as a photo editor for VOLT magazine between 1992 and 1994. He founded a photo studio in 1995 to teach the “Art and Profession” of photography. Accompanied by wife M. Judit Horváth, the couple took photos of gypsy colonies throughout Hungary and of slum city quarters of the capital. Their work was published in a photo album “Another World”.
Recently, he has been taking photographs of the vanishing microcosm of the 8th district of Budapest. He won the Budapest Photography Grant of the Municipal Pro Urbis Foundation for his series “Jó…Józsefváros” at the Press Photo Competition of the Association of Hungarian Journalists in 2006. He was given the Rudolf Balogh Award. He is a member of the Presidency of Association of Hungarian Photographers. He has had several group and one man shows of his work both in and outside of Hungary. Several of his pictures are kept by the Hungarian Museum of Photography in Kecskemét. staltergyorgy.hu
Mark Power ‘Lenwood, California, USA. January 2015’ (From ‘Postcards from America’)
23” x 12.5” signed digital print
Tami Bone ‘Venus’
8” x 8” signed hand print on Hahnemuhle German Etching paper special edition of 1
Tami Bone grew up in the deep South Texas where she spent a childhood oftentimes free and driven by her imagination. Her photographic work today pulls from impressions made during these early beginnings that make their way into her narrative images.
Today, Tami lives in Round Top, Texas and engages photography as a means of storytelling and self-expression, with a knowing that the stories we tell form our personal truths and unique folklore.
She believes that our stories, both true and imagined, are significant and have the power to shape our lives, before finally, they become our lives. While her recent body of work, Mythos, is her own tale, it is a token of the shared mystery that binds us together. tamibone.com
Sookyoung Huh ‘Core’
8” x 10” digital C-type on Kodak Endura paper in a natural wood white frame
Sookyoung Huh was born in Seoul, South Korea and completed a BA Fine Art at Chung Ang University and an MA Fine Art at the University of Leeds. She is currently based in London working as an artist, curator and writer.
She has displayed her works in various UK exhibitions as well as internationally renowned places such as Busan Biennale 2007, Kulturhuset Stockholm Sweden 2013, Art Atina Greece 2015, participating shows in both UK and Seoul Korea. sookyounghuh.com
Markus Lehr ‘… and shattered’
44cm x 30cm Crane Museo Silver Rag pigment print limited edition 2/ 10
“My main focal point is to present urban and industrial photography. Although the spaces that I decide to use for my motifs are man-made, I generally choose to depict them empty, deserted and alone. I am fascinated by the ambiguity of our relationships with cities – with the artifacts we leave behind, the man-made morphology and the ever-changing topography that we emplace on our environment.
My aim is to explore areas that have signs of transformation through change and cultural influence. I look specifically for tensions and dialogues in these locations: between foreground and background, between object and subject, between past and present and in the case of Berlin, between East and West.
I am based in Berlin.” www.markuslehr.com
Fabio Sgroi ‘Macedonia 2004’
12” x 8” digital C-type on Kodak Endura paper
Fabio began his career as a photographer in 1986 in the study of Letizia Battaglia and Franco Zecchin, collaborating as reporter for the daily paper LOra. From the beginning, he was particularly interested in his homeland of Sicily, in all kinds of forms, from the annual religious celebrations to daily life. He travelled and worked throughout Europe and different parts of the world.
From 2000, he has focused on panoramic format to capture the urban landscape and industrial archaeology. Over the years his career has included many professional international and European experiences. He has exhibited in different galleries in Europe and America, and in international festivals. His career includes collaborations, residences and international photographic projects in France, Germany and the Czech Republic.
He has also exhibited in numerous individual and collective exhibitions including those in Italy, Off Arles Photographic Festival, Gallery and the Museum Etnografico of Belgrado, the Leica Gallery of Sölms, the Photo Biennale in Moscow, the Biennial Photographique of Bonifacio, the Centre Mediterraneeen de the Photographie-Bastia (Corsica), Saba Gallery New York, and Diaframma-Kodak – Milano among others.
His ten-year photographic journey across the Balkans regions entitled: “PASSAGE” took part in the FOTOISTANBUL slideshow during 2015. www.fotografer.n.nu/fabio-sgroi-italien
Maria Bratt ‘View from a Window’
8” x 12” digital C-type on Kodak Endura paper
Maria Bratt is an art photographer born in Stockholm in 1985. She has studied art and media, and communication at Gothenburg University and Södertörn University. At present, she is working at Konsthall C in Stockholm.
Maria is oriented towards black and white photography, portraits and feminist photography.
The photograph ‘View from a window’ is a frozen moment of her life in Stockholm, which is a symbolic picture of yearning for freedom. mariabratt.wordpress.com