Nailya Alexander Gallery is pleased to present Temporary Presences, an exhibition of thirteen hand-colored archival pigment prints by Helen Glazer (b. 1955). The exhibition will run from June 14 through July 20, 2012 at the Fuller Building, 41 East 57th Street, Suite 704. Gallery hours are 11am-6pm, Tuesday through Saturday in June and 11am-5pm, Tuesday through Friday in July. Opening reception for the artist will be held on June 14, 5:30-7:30pm.
Glazer’s work is influenced by ideas of chaos and complexity, theories that look at the diverse patterns in nature, such as the shape of coastlines, the growth of tree limbs or the movement of fluids. The intricacy of cloud formations arises from an infinitely detailed system in which each tiny element reflects the pattern of the whole. With study, these patterns are recognizable, yet never entirely predictable.
Glazer intensifies her prints with pastel pencils to bring out these temporary presences, heightening and deepening the colors and tones. The resulting works -- printed up to 40 inches long -- reveal nuances that the camera captures, but the naked eye fails to see, and conventional image processing does not show. Though these works read mainly as abstractions, the representational force of photography is integral to the experience. That they are not inventions, but records of actual moments in time, is a reminder that stability is an illusion and that the reality we live in is being replaced moment by moment.
“Cloud formations are ephemeral, transforming and decaying as they move through the vast space of the sky," Glazer notes. "When I stop the action with my camera and mine the information recorded there, clouds reveal themselves as intricately textured forms that gesture and take on a poetic resonance. They inspire wonder and feelings of transcendence. They morph into unexpected, almost otherworldly forms that would be difficult to invent–the human brain works too schematically for that."
Helen Glazer (b. 1955, Bronx, NY) lives in Baltimore. She received her BA in art from Yale University in 1976 and her MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 1978. She has exhibited her work extensively in the Baltimore and Washington, DC areas. Her hand-colored cloud photographs were recently shown in the Alchemy of Change exhibition at the New York Hall of Science and will be a part of the Centennial Exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum in the fall. Her work is in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Chautauqua Institution (Chautauqua, NY).