Hysterectic is a unique photographic project that creatively interprets one woman’s journey through a hysterectomy operation. It challenges conventional perception and asks questions as to how, with imagination and creativity, a woman can take some personal control over this often traumatic medical procedure on the feminine body and psyche. The work shines a light on this major, yet commonplace womans’ operation and promotes the use of the arts as a tool for transformation and recovery.

As Cherry Smyth, poet and art critic writes in the foreword in the book

“ This is a skilful, resonant documentation of a woman’s determination to humanise and feminise the dehumanising and defeminising experience of having a hysterectomy. It is a stunning, affecting, unforgettable piece of work that deserves to be seen widely not just by girls and women, but by men who care for them and also came from that intimate source.”

In Whitefield’s brave and bold series, she follows in the venerable and vulnerable footsteps of artists like Jo Spence, Helen Chadwick and Hannah Wilke, who chartered their bodies’ visceral experiences through photographs. Using the form of a visual diary, she leads us (and herself) through the tentative steps of the admission to hospital, the pre-op prep and the results.

She photographs and uses angles that reflect an Alice in Wonderland type of adventure, reinforcing feelings of detachment and otherworldliness contrasted with the stark sterility and brutality of the clinical imagery and surroundings.

www.sonyawhitefield.com
www.goldenthreadgallery.co.uk

From 7100 photo award entries 41 winning images were chosen to become part of the Hahnemühle Anniversary Collection.
Details of the exhibitions in 2010 traveling through the photo capitals of the world can be found here:

Sydney: 10 February – 08 March
SUN STUDIOS, 42 Maddox Street
Alexandria NSW 2015
to gallery

Berlin: 01 – 20 March
Galerie im Einstein
Unter den Linden 42
10117 Berlin
to gallery

Beijing: 05 – 25 April
TMIC Gallery
ONEARTBASE Chaoyang District Beijing
Zur Galerie

London: 09 – 23 April
RKB Gallery
57-61 Union St
London, SE1 1SG
to gallery

Paris: 07 May – 04 June
Galerie DUPON
24 rue Joseph de Maistre
75018 Paris

Hong Kong: 15 – 28 March

New York: 24 March – 21 June
The HP Gallery at Calumet Photo
Calumet Photographic
22 W. 22nd St.
New York, NY 10010
to gallery

Köln: 21 – 26 September
photokina

Istanbul: 09 October – 26 November

Further exhibitions are planned. Dates will be annnounced in time.

(via Hahnemühle)

To celebrate its 425th anniversary Hahnemühle is inviting both amateur and professional photographers from all over the world to take part in the international Hahnemühle Anniversary Photo Award.

The theme of the competition is “For Originals”. We are interested in the photographer’s unique angle of capturing people, objects and moments from an original perspective.

Please submit up to 4 pictures printed on Hahnemühle paper in A4 format.

The lucky winners can look forward to receiving a total of €36.000 in non-cash prizes. The 40 best images will be selected for the “Hahnemühle Anniversary Collection” which will be exhibited in the European, American and Asian photo capitals of the world. Entry requirements and entry form can be found here.

Closing date is 30.06.2009.

Visit the Hahnemühle website

“Limited”

Artists: Peter Lloyd Lewis, Sarah Dobai, Lohan Emmanuel, Bettina Buck, Lisa Penny, Mark Harris curated by Dallas Seitz, Lisa Penny & Trevor Hall.

You are cordially invited to the opening on Friday, 3rd October 2008 6pm – late.

Show 4th October to 19th October
Wednesday to Sunday, 12 – 7pm
The Wenlock Building
50-60 Wharf Road
London
N1 7RN
The Wharf Road Project brings more than 20 innovative contemporary art initiatives together for the first time in a central location, creating a seminal showcase for the more unusual and innovative. The Wharf Road Project is not an art fair, but a large-scale exhibition featuring the best of London’s specialist and experimental art spaces, complemented by a programme of performances, screenings, music and guided tours.

Participants have each been allocated one of the 5-storey venue’s rooms to curate exhibitions which reflect their artistic endeavours and curatorial ethos. This mash-up of different organisations will create an opportunity to engage with established art spaces as well as some of the newest and most exciting art initiatives in London.

CURATORS:

Frog Morris with Lee Campbell
www.frogmorris.net
myspace.com/leejjcampbell
Matt Williams
Dallas Seitz, Lisa Penny & Trevor Hall present:
Peter Lloyd Lewis, Lohan Emmanuel, Bettina Buck, Lisa Penny, Sarah Dobai, Mark Harris.

19 – 22 September 2008

An exhibition of works by 20 artists & designers in the basement of Shoreditch Town Hall.

Private View: 18 September 6.30 – 9.30pm
Exhibition Dates: 19 – 22 September 2008
Opening Times: 19 – 21 September 11.00 – 18.00, 22 September 12.00 – 21.00

Participating artists & designers:
Alex Bettler, BDP Sound + Light, Chelsey Browne, John Cake, Margaret Calvert, Michael Czerwinski, Simon Donald, Joel Dunmore, Rosy Greaves, Kay Harwood, Tomas Klassnik, Lee Maelzer, Paulo Munn, Darren Neave, Delphine Perrot, Lucienne Roberts, Amanprit Sandhu, Sinta Tantra, Chris Turrell, Melanie Watkins and Ben Youngman.

Getting There:
By Underground or rail: Liverpool Street or Old Street stations (10 min walk from either).
By Bus: Routes 5, 22A, 35, 47, 48, 55, 67, 78, 149, 242 and 245 stop nearby.

For further information visit:
http://nothingworks2008.blogspot.com

Dan Hays Roderick Harris Marc Hulson Peter Lloyd Lewis

Garden of the Sleep of Love is an exhibition featuring work that investigates ideas of the sublime, artificiality, beauty, mortality and the grotesque in relation to painting.

Through a variety of mediums four artists present works that explore these concepts in terms of contemporary phenomena including the media, digital imagery, rock concerts and horror movies.

Taken from the series Colorado Impressions, Dan Hays’ work utilises digital photographic imagery sourced from the internet as a basis for painting.

Roderick Harris presents a series of works which focus on and refigure images taken from a Michael Jackson concert.

Marc Hulson’s work sites itself at the edge of figuration, exploring the imaginary through both representation and abstraction.

Beginning with painting, Peter Lloyd Lewis uses digital manipulation to blur the relationship between painting, object and photography.

Five Years Gallery
Regent Studios
8 Andrews Road
Unit 66
E8 4QN
http://www.fiveyears-unit66.blogspot.com/

A Retrospective / 1-16 December
Private View / Thursday 6 December 6.00-9.00pm

Jo Holland works on the borders between photography and painting, employing the techniques of both to create images that belong to neither medium. Holland makes photographs without the intermediary of either camera or negative, directly exposing the object through the lense onto what becomes a unique ilfochrome print. In this respect her work goes against the grain of much of contemporary photographic practice, which is dominated by the reproducibility of the medium and its digital manipulation. Focusing instead on the line between attraction and repulsion in the viewer’s response, the objects of Holland’s gaze include pig eyes, rotting pears, lamb hearts, sheep brains and, in her recent series the human placenta. Having dissected the object, Holland arranges the resulting cross-sections on a glass plate, onto which, in her more recent images, she intorduces glazes and blocks of colour, creating a hybrid form of image – making between photography and painting. Acquiring from this process the presence and aura of a unique work of art, the resulting images reveal a hidden, fleeting and often violent beauty where we least expect to find it.

The exhibition is Holland’s first retrospective, and a unique chance to see works from her fourteen years as a professional artist.

BODHI GALLERY
214 Brick Lane
London E1 6SA
Open daily 1.00-10.30pm

PREVIEW 21 NOVEMBER 2007 4PM – 8PM
Tim Smyth learned the power cars have the hard way-by going through the windscreen of one that was moving. As well as glass splinters, that accident, when he was out cycling, also imprinted musings on the destructiveness of the motor car.

Smyth has used this, and witnessing a car flip over into the fast lane of a motorway, as inspiration for photography of great beauty. Abstract images that seem at odds with the reality behind the image – the photographs are all details of the decaying shells of cars that have been involved in accidents. What happened in the accident? Was anyone injured or killed? The work doesn’t tell and Smyth doesn’t know so the work leaves the viewer wondering.

Smyth says:
“One morning I found this car at the end of my road that had been in a collision. It looked like an amazing still life: great material that transposed well photographically because of the amount of layers that you get within the reflections, the paintwork and the metal underneath.”
“Because I didn’t do anything to the cars myself, the process of creating the pictures involved really inspecting them”

Tim’s work was awarded Hotshoe Magazine’s student award 2007. In the accompanying article Sophie Wright described what it was that impressed Hotshoe so much:
“The surfaces barely recognisable as bumper or bonnet, transform into a glacial landscape, satellite images of continents, or canvas scoured by strange calligraphy.
“Corrosion is the final layer in Smyth’s photographs: a gradual reclaiming by nature of man-made technology.
“Although the end result seems abstracted, the intention is still documentary.
“His influences are all documentary photographers whose work sits comfortably in an art context: From Henri-Cartier Bresson to Wolfgang Tillmans, Juergen Teller and Stephen Gill”

Tim Smyth’s exhibition “The Nature of Machines” is the first exhibition for Rathbone Gallery. Sam Green of Rathbone says:
“We are very pleased that Tim Smyth chose Rathbone to exhibit these beautiful works. The underlying tension seems to reveal itself the more you look at them and they fit in perfectly with Rathbone’s desire to bring the best of contemporary photography along with the best, and most interesting, of the past.”

The opening for Tim Smyth’s “The Nature of Machines” will be at Rathbone on 21 November 4 – 8pm and the exhibition will run until January 17 2008.

For further information/images please contact:
Sam Green
T: 020 7636 6699
M: 07967 688 406

Alec Soth writes, “I recently dipped my toes into the art education industry. After several waves of exhilaration and despair, I’m happy to find myself back on the relative terra firma of this blog. But I’m struggling to bring any coherence to my impressions. With only two weeks spent at the San Francisco Art Institute, I’m not qualified to offer much on the topic of arts education. But something is nagging at me. Something seems wrong.” Read more…

Alec Soth’s insights about art education. He thinks something is wrong. What do you think?

Source: alec soth – blog via digitalarte.co.uk

“Today is the first anniversary of this blog. I’m happy to have made it this far, but I’m feeling a little guilty. With an average of 2,000 unique visitors per day (and 220,000 visitors in total), I fear I’ve squandered the opportunity to provide much of a public service. Too many of my 310 posts have been devoted to subjects like Erotic Baseball Photography, Pamela Anderson, Rabbits n’ Circles, Jesse ‘the body’ Ventura and, of course, Sandwich Jumping. So in hopes of doing some good for the photo-blog community, I’m posting something that might be helpful:

Career Guide for Photographers”
 

Alec Soth’s tongue in cheek careers for photographers. Brilliant!

(via alec soth – blog)