Abstract Rhythm & Blue Notes Exhibition
A celebration of photographic expressionism
16th – 28th NOVEMBER 2022
Left to Right: Malcolm Cross, Alison Buchanan, Barb Kreutter, Doug Chinnery, Jan Beesley, Valda Bailey, Linda Hacker, Freda Hocking, Jocelyn Horsfall,Deb Loeb-Bohren, Laura Goin, Howard Rankin, Karen Honey Walker, Iveta Lazdina, Annemarie Hoogwoud, Dan Harnett
Our exhibition in Whitstable is now finished and we would like to thank everyone who came and supported us. We enjoyed meeting you and hope that if you are in the area, you will join us at our next exhibition, Rhythm of the Unseen, in New York in the first week of May 2023.
Below are some images and video from the exhibition:
Visitor comments
Video courtesy of Doug Chinnery baileychinnery.com
About
The Exhibition
Abstract Rhythm & Blue Notes celebrates abstract photography, a genre that can trace its roots back to the early 20th Century. One hundred years later, it continues to provide photographers with challenging and exciting opportunities for unique creative expression.
The scope of Abstract Rhythm & Blue Notes is embraced by the title itself: Blue notes are used for expressive purposes and are sung or played at a slightly different pitch from the standard.
As passionate and enthusiastic photographic expressionists the artists in this show are travelling along a path that is less travelled in the photography world, using their own version of blue notes.
It is hoped that our exhibition will educate, engage and provide a visual feast for the eyes, heart and mind.
Special
Guest Artists
VALDA BAILEY
The causal deployment of the brush that says so much, with such apparent ease is
something I have always found extremely compelling. It could be argued that I’m
setting myself up for failure before I even begin, by trying to make a photograph in a
way that is more akin to painting. However, as the cameras today become more and
more efficient, new challenges are needed and the joy of pushing against convention in
search of my own voice is one that never fades.
Valda Bailey is a freelance photographer living in Sussex who first became passionate about
photography as a young teenager.
Her approach to photography is greatly informed by her background in painting and her influences come as much from artists as photographers. She is motivated by colour and form and the tension and dynamism that these components can bring to an image.
The impact of the many years she spent painting is obvious in the way she approaches her photography. She is drawn towards imaginative abstraction and the challenges that present themselves when moving beyond the act of merely replicating what is in front of the lens. A common thread that underpins much of her work is the element of fragility. She is fascinated by all manner of contrasts and contradictions and her work is an attempt toreconcile some of the conflicting aspects that are of interest to her in the landscape.
Her methods include the use of multiple exposures and camera movement in order to simplify the detail in a scene. It is a way of working which is controllable to a certain degree but still has a significant element of unpredictability about it. Much like watercolour painting.
She spends a great deal of time teaching people how to extend creative thinking and find their voice in a world that is already submerged beneath the weight of an incalculable number of photographic images.
valdabailey.com
www.baileychinnery.com
BOOKS
We May As Well Dance Nov 2021 Kozu Books
Masters of Landscape by Ross Hoddinott
Fragile published by Triplekite Publishing, July 2016 SOLD OUT
Land|Sea from Triplekite Publishing and Amazon 2014
A SELECTION OF INTERVIEWS ETC
Outdoor Photography – Feb 2022
Biblioscapes – Jan 2022
Pain News – autumn 2021. Windsong and Harmony
Sky Arts – My Greatest Shot TV series Nov 2021
ICM Magazine – summer 2021
Outdoor Photography Mar 2020
Rfoto – July 2019
Digital Camera World, April 2016
Landscape Photography Magazine Oct 2015
Light and Land – leader insight Sept 2015
BBC Radio Sussex 19 Aug 2015
Telegraph online 1st Aug 2015
The Telegraph 1st Aug 2015
Landscape Photography Magazine Aug 2015
On Landscape EndFrame
Chasing Light- a film by Angus Mitchell
Craft and Vision PHOTOGRAPH no 11
Craft and Vision podcast interview with Jeffery Saddoris
Outdoor Photography January 2015
Land|Sea review at OnLandscape by Paul Arthur April 2014
OnLandscape March 2014 Featured photographer
OnLandscape Sept 2013 with Doug Chinnery
EXHIBITIONS
2021 Sept Sohn Gallery – solo exhition
2021 Sept Photo London with MMX Gallery
2021 Mar NYC4PA – first prize – Silent Night
2021 June San Diego Museum of Art – summer exhibition
2021 Apr Center for Photographic Art, Carmel. Members juried exhibition.
2021 Mar New York Center for Photographic Art – juried exhibition
2020, Oct Photo London (online) with MMX Gallery
2020, Jun PhotoLA (online) with MMX Gallery
2019, Jul LBIF, New Jersey (joint)
2019, May Photo London with MMX GALLERY
2018, Apr OXO GALLERY, London “VISION 9” (joint)
2018 Feb MMX GALLERY, London “The Sun Beyond the Shadow” (solo)
2017 Oct SOHN GALLERY, Lenox “Into the Woods” (joint)
2017 Jun BOSHAM GALLERY, Sussex “Fragile” (solo)
2017 Apr MMX GALLERY, London “Inside the Outside” 22 Apr – 3 Jun 2017 (joint)
2017 Mar JAC GALLERY, Jersey “Fragile” (solo)
2016 Oct THE PHOTO PLACE, Nottingham “Inside the Outside”(joint)
2016 Apr NEW ASHGATE GALLERY “Rural & Urban Perspectives” (joint)
2015 Aug MALL GALLERIES with Light & Land (joint)
2015 Jul MASTERS OF VISION, Southwell Minster (joint)
2015 Jul BRIGHTON PHOTOGRAPHY GALLERY (joint)
2014 Apr DDA FACTORY, Sardinia (joint)
2014 Apr PATCHINGS FESTIVAL “Connected” (joint)
2014 Mar MALL GALLERIES with Light & Land (joint)
2014 Mar LINUS GALLERIES 71% (joint)
2013 Feb ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, Members Biennial Exhibition
2013 Jan CORK STREET GALLERIES (joint)
2012 Nov LINUS GALLERIES Botanicals (joint)
2012 Aug CORK STREET GALLERIES (joint)
DOUG CHINNERY
Based in England, I am an artist, and the camera is my principal medium.
While being somewhat averse to labelling my work, if pressed, I would describe it as ‘Photographic Expressionism‘.
I am driven to make images which reflect my love of abstraction. Focusing on details rather than the wider world, I try to tease out beauty from the mundane and often overlooked. Having no interest in showing things as they are, my quest is to evoke an emotional response from my work.
My images tend to owe much to Abstract Expressionist painters, in my quest to discover balance and harmony in pure shapes, colours, forms, contrast and texture. I face an ongoing struggle to understand and work with the visual language – but, for me, this is where the intense joy lies in doing what I am so privileged to do.
Inspired principally by painters such as Rothko, Ryman, Feiler and Hodgkin, I dabble in mixed media abstract painting and collage as well as occasionally writing (fairly awful) poetry for relaxation.
I have exhibited in London, Germany and in galleries across the UK. The first edition of my book, ‘Abstract Mindedness’, has now sold out. I relish frequent opportunities to speak to photographic groups around the world about creativity and abstraction.
I enjoy engaging with students who share my love of creative freedom and artistic expression through abstraction and devote much of my time teaching. I would love to invest more time in making my own work and enjoying travel with my wife, Beth, and our two dogs, Eddie & Lily.
www.dougchinnery.com
www.baileychinnery.com
EXHIBITIONS
2022 – Abstract Rhythm and Blue Notes – Group Exhibition. Sohn Gallery, Lennox MA, USA.
2021 – International Group Project – ‘Sketchbook Project’ – Brooklyn Library, New York City, USA.
2018 – Group exhibition – Light & Land – ‘Evolving Landscapes’ – The OXO Gallery, The South Bank, London.
2018 – Group exhibition – Vision 9 – ‘The Touch of a Vanished Hand’ – The OXO Gallery, The South Bank, London.
2016 – Solo exhibition – ‘A Walk in the Woods’ – The Peak District National Park Visitor Centre, Bakewell, Derbyshire.
2014 – “The Year of the Print” group exhibition with Charlie Waite, Joe Cornish & David Ward et al, The Mall Galleries, London
2013 – “Connected” group exhibition, Patchings Art Centre, Calverton, Nottinghamshire.
2012 – The Joe Cornish Summer Exhibition – Northallerton. Yorkshire. Group exhibition. Four image collection, Highly Commended
2012 – “Dark Light” – Solo exhibition of monochrome images at The Trinity Arts Centre, Gainsborough.
2012 – Shortlisted for Landscape Photographer of the Year
2012 – Ilford Imaging – Group exhibition, Cologne, Germany
2011 – “Time Passing” Solo exhibition at The Gallery, Patchings Art Centre, Nottinghamshire
2011 – The National Theatre, London – “Landscape Photographer of the Year” video presentation
2010 – The National Theatre, London – “Landscape Photographer of the Year”group exhibition. Judges Choice award.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
February 2022 – Foreword for ‘Anecdotes’ by Chris Friel.
June 2021 – Article in Pain News Vol 19 p.75-80 – The Journal of the British Pain Society – “Abstract Mindedness – a personal experience of using creativity to recover from mental illness”
May 2021 – Foreword for ‘New Beginnings’, a Photo-anthology by six photographers edited by Paul Gotts and John Ash. The profits from the project going to support the Young Minds UK mental health charity.
January 2021 – Interview with Euan Ross from the Biblioscapes website on my book, ‘Abstract Mindedness’ and other things creativity related.
October 2020 – Extensive 8 page interview by Nick Smith for Outdoor Photography Magazine issue 260 – ‘In Conversation with Doug Chinnery’
September 2020 – Review, including video presentation, of ‘Abstract Mindedness’ by Euan Ross on the Biblioscapes website.
June 2019 – Publication of my book, ‘Abstract Mindedness’, published by Kozu Books. All profits going to the Young Minds UK mental health charity. Now sold out.
April to June 2019 interviews in Outdoor Photography, Amateur Photography, David Noton’s F11 magazine, Practical Photography and Video coverage by Greg Whitton Vlog of my Snowdon Climb and release of my book, ‘Abstract Mindedness’.
July 2017 & March 2018 – I was interviewed by Sam Gregory & Paul Sanders for the Togcast photography podcast and we made a video of our discussion of three portfolios of my work.
June 2016 – Foreword for ‘april, may, june and then july’ by Roj Whitelock – a photo-essay in support of Cancer Research UK
Summer 2015 – Foreword for Chris Friel’s Book – ‘Framed’
July 2015 – Editorial Article – ‘The Credit Crunch’ with images
March 2015 – Featured Photographer in Fotospeed brochure.
April 2015 – Featured Photographer Interview – B&W magazine
2015 – Featured image in Elle Decoration magazine
Spring 2015 – Foreword for Rob Knights “Dark Vision” Exhibition and Book
March 2014 – ‘My Way of Seeing” – Supplement co-written with Charlie Waite and David Ward for Amateur Photography magazine.
May 2014 – “Lie of the Land”.
December 2013 – “In Conversation with Doug Chinnery”, Interview article by OP editor Steve Watkins.
Featured as case study in Craft and Vision eBook entitled “Slow” by author Andrew S. Gibson
October 2013 – Webinar – “Creative Landscape Photography” – for OnLandscape magazine.
September 2013 – “Multiple Exposure Landscape Photography” – an article for ONLandscape magazine.
May 2011 – Interview and images for OnLandscape magazine.
2011 Major project for new ranges for Zoffany featured in Home and Garden, World of Interiors and Elle Decoration.
Participating Artists
Jan Beesley
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Malcolm Cross
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Dan Harnett
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Jocelyn Horsfall
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Howard Rankin
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Deborah Loeb Bohren
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Laura Goin
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Freda Hocking
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Barb Kreutter
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Honey J Walker
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Alison Buchanan
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Linda Hacker
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Annemarie Hoogwoud
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Iveta Lazdina
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JAN BEESLEY
Based in Sussex, UK, I use the camera as an artistic tool to capture my experience and feelings about the world around me.
I believe that we experience the world as a series of fleeting impressions and emotions, spiced and flavoured by our own memories and thoughts. I aim to capture not what I am looking at, but what I see and feel.
My other passion is for the written word, especially poetry, and I am particularly interested in the interplay between words and image. My projects often involve both poetry and image.
In the same way that the dance of words in a poem can evoke a response my aim is to capture the dance of colour, form and light.
Web: www.janbeephotography.com
Instagram: @jan.beesley
MALCOLM CROSS
My work is colourful and abstract, inspired by urban and natural environments, expressionist art movements and many past and contemporary photographers. I aim to surprise and evoke a variety of emotions and reflective experiences, encouraging the viewer to see beyond the abstract.
I pursue the creation of my art through the medium of digital photography. A creative process where image capture and processing are of equal importance to me. When making images I use conventional and creative photographic techniques such as intentional camera movement and multiple exposure.
The freedom of the digital medium enables me to express the way I see, think and feel about the world around me. Invariably, I employ digital processing that shares some of the features of serigraphy or silk screen printing that I like to describe as ‘Digi-serigraphy’
DAN HARNETT
Inspired by my long and close association with the sea, my work ranges from abstract to still life photography. Drawing on experiences and memories from my time in the merchant navy and my childhood memories growing up on the Kent coast.
My photography is an extension of my life’s voyage, creating works that explore human relationships with the sea, conjuring images, stories and reflections. Having spent years at sea, I am well aware of the harsh environment and the sea and ocean’s hidden strength.
I’m keenly cognisant of the different ways we experience the sea – a seafarer who lives and works on the water has a different outlook and priorities to a landlubber experiencing it from the shoreline.
https://danielharnett.co.uk
Instagram – @danielharnett
Twitter – @daniel_harnett
JOCELYN HORSFALL
I am a London based photographic artist, specialising in atmospheric and evocative images inspired by flowers and foliage and the natural world. Nature is good for the soul, and I am looking to reflect some of its beauty and harmony in my work, and to share the sense of inner replenishment I feel.
My style is painterly and impressionistic, combining a strong sense of colour and form with an interest in textural effects and abstraction. I use soft focus, multiple exposure and camera movement to create images with a fluid, organic feel.
I have been thrilled to have won several 1st prizes in the prestigious International Garden Photographer of the Year competition in recent years.
Instagram: @jocelynhorsfall
HOWARD RANKIN
My passions include music, nature and travel, with photography , the common thread that runs through them all. I love capturing the moment at a gig, or in the company of precious wildlife, but also savouring the more considered times in the landscape.
But the greatest artistic satisfaction comes from trying to interpret what I see and what I feel, using abstractive techniques (ICM and multiple exposures) to create something new, fleeting, imagined and unique.
Photography leads me to engage with light, form, colour and moment, from which I hope to create an emotional impression, aspiring to art. I may seldom succeed but often the dance itself is satisfying in itself.
“It’s not what the Music says, it’s what the Music means.”
DEB BOHREN
The offspring of two photographers, my passion for photography was inescapable, having been imprinted on my DNA. I discovered the darkroom when I was about 5, and won my first photography contest when I was in the 6th grade. I don’t remember a time when photography was not an essential part of my life.
Today I approach my work as a visual alchemy, a transformation not of matter, but of color, light, line and gesture. With my camera as a paintbrush, I use a variety of techniques including intentional camera movement (ICM) and in-camera multiple exposures to create iconic and abstract images that reveal the essence, emotion and soul of the places I’ve been and the things I’ve seen. Each represents a unique moment in time, space and, of course, mind.
I am honored to have my work as part of private/individual and corporate collections across the US, and to have had it exhibited at the Sohn Gallery (MA), the Katonah Museum of Art (NY), the Praxis Photo Arts Center (MN) and the ASmith Gallery (TX), among others. My abstract image, “Homage to the Cubists in Paris”, was recognized for Outstanding Achievement/1st Place in the Professional Abstract category at the 14th Annual International Color Awards last year. I also chronicle my global adventures in words and images as a regular contributor to Everett Potter’s Travel Report.
LAURA GOIN
My connection to the land runs deep. I grew up on a farm in the heartland of the United States, a land of mystery and seemingly unlimited horizons. Life on the farm was tough and money was scarce, but open fields and quiet places to explore were plentiful. Summer days were spent roaming through pastures and the evenings lying in the grass gazing at the Milky Way. There was freedom as far as the eye could see.
Today, I wander with camera in hand to discover new horizons that reignite my childhood connection to the land. Using the abstraction of intentional camera movement I attempt to bridge what my eyes see with what my heart feels. In creating these images I’m transported back to magical and wondrous moments in the countryside. And in those moments I am back home again.
Web: www.lauragoin.com
Instagram: @lauragoinphotography
FREDA HOCKING
Like many photographers, my photography began with the wider landscape but I am increasingly drawn to the less obvious and look for detail in patterns, colour, light and shade. My aesthetic is painterly and abstract using various in-camera techniques such as Multiple Exposure and Intentional Camera Movement to alter shapes, colour and mood to celebrate the beauty around us.
My overall objective is to evoke a sense of tranquility and harmony that is deeply satisfying to both myself and the viewer.
Website: www.hockingphotographic.co.uk
BARB KREUTTER
Barb Kreutter is a Canadian artist who began her career as a textile designer but has since discovered the abstract expressionist world of photography, creating images that enable her to explore her life long love of colour, texture and form.
The nature found in Alberta, where Barb lives, serves as her inspiration. She has been intrigued by how the environment surrounding her makes her feel rather than just how it looks. As a result, she incorporates the patterns and textures from her everyday life to create images that reflect her feelings, rather than simply documenting what she sees before her.
Her images are inspired by the frozen mountain lakes, reflections in slushy puddles of melting snow, textures in the land and the subtle beauty of the ever changing colours in the sky above her head. Constructed Landscapes is the culmination of Barb’s reimaging of the world around her.
https://kreutter.zenfolio.com/
https://www.instagram.com/barbkreutter/
HONEY J WALKER
I am a London based abstract expressionist photographer.
My background was in fashion, interior design and textiles, all of which still influence my love of colour and form.
All of my previous careers involved extensive travel and that wanderlust permeates my work, along with an enormous interest and inquisitiveness for the human condition.
Within my photographs there exists a converging of two scales; the physical world, (things in themselves as they are) and the interior world, ( that which lies hidden in all things).
A synchronism of the eternal and the everyday.
My interior world is expressed externally through my lens, the layering of images that find me, that reveal themselves as I work.
My subconscious finding oxygen.
All of my work is in some way informed by an emotional response to the here and now or the past, not quiet laid to rest.
www.instagram.com/honeyjwalker
Email info@honeyjwalker.com
ALISON BUCHANAN
I am a Sussex based photographer with a background in television and various genres of photography. I now find myself seeking to capture more than the physical presence of where I am as I concentrate on details and abstraction to capture the feelings and emotions of what I see. To pause in this busy world and simply absorb all that is around you, what it makes you feel and to try and interpret that moment in time.
By using different techniques including Intentional Camera Movement and the layering and blending of images, I aspire to capture what is often the less obvious, to convey some of what I feel through the blending of colours, form and shape. I draw inspiration not just from other photographers but also the worlds of art and literature.
LINDA HACKER
I am a Brooklyn, NY based visual artist inspired by the built environment. It is in urban spaces that I feel most fully myself. My images explore and express the depth, complexity, and intimacy of the living city around me – the multiple ways any one thing can be seen/interpreted. Using abstraction, I work to evoke a sense of mystery and ambiguity – moving between the material world as it is and what could be – the world of possibility I sense all around me.
In creating these images, I am also exploring myself — my thoughts, emotions, and beliefs.
www.lindahackerphoto.com
Instagram: @stretchhack
ANNEMARIE HOOGWOUD
By taking the time I will see more and look differently”.
Taking time is the common thread in my work. Both in my free work and my work on assignment.
Inspired by the beauty as I experience it in the story of a client, in the visual arts, novels, poems and music, I use my camera in search of the essence of what touches me, I see and experience. To discover what it is about for me. The inspirations often take shape and content in the landscape.
I use various camera- en print techniques for this. This creates unusual images. Images that tell the story, images that ask to take the time, images that call for reflection.
By working in series, I get to the essence and I be able to visualize and articulate the story in its full scope.
In a sometimes hectic, restless and hard world, I hope that my art inspires you to stand still, evoke an emotion and invite you to reflect on what is seen.
website: https://www.annemariehoogwoud.nl/en
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annemariehoogwoud/
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/annemariehoogwoud
IVETA LAZDINA
Iveta Lazdina is a Latvian-based photographer.
Photography, for me, is an inner conversation. The beauty and diversity of nature are the foundation for dualities; light colors and darkness, smooth lines versus sharp. These contrasts reflect the inner harmony of creation. Therefore, instead of escaping from imperfection, I will accept and incorporate them as an integral part of the duality.
Through multi-exposure and ICM (Intentional camera movement), I am looking to embed these varied layers of internal and external contrasts reflected in colors and shapes as a symbol of the creative processes. To catch the moment, which gives you a fragment of what might be an answer or at times provides an instant of truth, is nature’s greatest gift.