Online Group Exhibition - "The Natural World” March 2023
Analog Forever Magazine, in partnership with the Colorado Photographic Arts Center and Month of Photography, Denver, is proud to present "The Natural World," an online group exhibition featuring 60 photographs, curated by American artist Wendi Schneider!
Wendi Schneider writes:
These beautifully seen translations of the natural world emerged from the stellar submissions we received. A sensuous sensitivity emanates from each of these poignant images. I was deeply moved by the intention of these eloquent interpretations of reverence and veneration.
Many of the images seem tied to the serenity we find in nature - they swell with each artist’s unique combustion of capture, chance, technique, and expression. I appreciate the focus and feeling that went into the creation and celebration - whether in choice of process, the range from muted to rich color, or soft to focused black and white. I’m indebted for the depth of diversity in presentation. I drew from those that resonated with me the most - the ones I simply could not couldn’t let go. Wonderful work was omitted with regret to create a diverse and cohesive exhibition.
Many of us now balance our turn to nature for nurture with the return of honoring and bringing awareness to what is imperiled. I hope you will revel in each of these mystical worlds and consider the vulnerability in expression and, of course, in the natural world. I’m grateful to have been entrusted with your achievements. I feel the rapture . . . and I thank you!
~ Wendi Schneider
GALLERY
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Wendi Schneider is an American artist widely known for her ongoing series of hand gilded photographs ‘States of Grace’. Drawn to the serenity and transcendence she finds in the sinuous elegance of organic forms, she creates illuminated impressions of vanishing beauty in the natural world. Schneider came to photography from painting in the early 1980’s, blending the two mediums by layering oils on her silver gelatin prints, hovering between the real and the imagined. She began working with grainy, painterly color slide film in the late ‘80s, initially for editorial work, before transitioning to digital in the 2000s. In 2012, she began layering her digitally layered images with gold leaf in the ‘States of Grace’ series - infusing the artist’s hand, and suffusing the treasured subjects with the luminosity and spirituality of gold, ensuring each print is a unique object of reverence. Schneider’s images seemingly dance on the paper’s surface amidst reflections of light on precious metals, creating a synthesis of technique and subject. Her work is influenced by a background in painting, art history, and her collection of turn-of-the-twentieth-century photogravures, platinum, and gum prints.
Schneider’s photographs are held in the permanent collections of The New Orleans Museum of Art, The Center for Creative Photography, The Memphis Brooks Museum, The Auburn University Library Special Collections, as well as numerous private collections. Her work has been published, awarded, and exhibited extensively worldwide and is represented by A Gallery for Fine Photography (New Orleans), Arnika Dawkins Gallery (Atlanta), Catherine Couturier Gallery (Houston), Etherton Gallery (Tucson), PhotoGraphic Gallery (San Miguel de Allende), Rick Wester Fine Art (New York), and Vision Gallery (Jerusalem). She is an active board member of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center.