Bill Costa Photography

Listing is for UNFRAMED print. Inquire within for framing. If the exhibition piece is sold or the customer orders a different print size, the photograph is produced upon purchase...

Listing is for UNFRAMED print. Edition 1 of 15. CURRENT EXHIBITION - runs through September 4th, 2016. Any framed photographs purchased during the show will be available after September 4th. If the exhibition piece is sold or the customer orders a different print size, the photograph is produced upon purchase. Please allow two weeks for production. Shipping time depends on method of shipping. Price is subject to availability. The Robin Rice Gallery reserves the right to adjust this price depending on the current edition of the photograph. ABOUT: Since the early ‘90s, gallerist Robin Rice and designer Antony Todd...

Listing is for UNFRAMED print. Inquire within for framing. Edition of 1 of 10 If the exhibition piece is sold or the customer orders a different print size, the photograph is produced upon purchase. Please allow two weeks for production. Shipping time depends on method of shipping. Price is subject to availability. The Robin Rice Gallery reserves the right to adjust this price depending on the current edition of the photograph This exhibition is a visual dance of contradictions. Whimsical and sophisticated. Stylistic and simple. Studied and carefree. That’s what emerges when you take a photojournalist by study, fashion photographer by trade and fine artist by instinct and leave him alone with his camera and a muse. Burris’ work is influenced by his early career spent working with fashion photographer Bill King and inspired by the decisive moment made known by the Henri Cartier Bresson. He defies the confines of either discipline. It is not fashion photography, which is by nature produced, but rather purely spontaneous. Todd left the world of fashion photography after building his own career in Milan and New York to go to LA and find his niche. He embraced his fascination with flea markets and penchant for discarded items that wouldn’t ever be chosen because they were trendy but because they were interesting. Burris packed his 1979 white Pontiac station wagon with his finds. When he came upon a stage that fit the props, he called on his muses and created a visual story on the spur of a moment. The collection of black and white images conveys a sense of effervescence and Élan. It includes photographs from Burris' time in Los Angeles as well as earlier experimental work in Milan and New York City. Anything but superficial, the invitational image, "Paget #1" challenges the traditional symmetry of beauty. We see a dramatic close up of a woman’s face, her intense eyes framed by the stark contrast between her porcelain skin and jet black hair. The lighting is such that her face is divided by shadow, one half dark and mysterious, the other half light and classically beautiful. The effect is deeply engaging. The viewer doesn’t know when the photo was taken but you want to know more. In “Mercer Street...

Stripper Performers, Atlanta, 1996 by Leonard Freed is an 11" x 14" vintage print, stamped on verso (back of photo) with Freed's copyright stamp and signed (back of photo) by the art...

A 14" x 11" black-and-white (gelatin silver) contemporary portrait photograph of a female nude with classic symmetrical proportions that suggests Greek sculpture. A feminine and stat...

Savannah Spirit Waiting Silver gelatin on Ilford multigrade paper, signed, edition of 5 Scroll for more on the artist and this series and an excerpt from the recent monograph, The Archive #6: Savannah Spirit, published by Quiet Lunch: "When I first saw Savannah Spirit’s early nudes, I felt immediately struck by their power and awareness. Of course, they were traditionally beautiful, with classical lighting and shadows from Venetian blinds. Some of them were sexy, in the way bodies are sexy. But they weren’t sexualized. Looking at them, I felt powerful. I felt good. They depicted the body of an adult woman viewing herself with love. I’ve been devoted to them ever since. To me, these portraits invoke the power of a landscape. The way the light rolls over the body evokes the body’s connection with the earth, with sunrise and its long deep shadows. The patterns of darkness can break the figure into geometry, creating a distance between the viewer and the image, as in End of An Era and Staying Abreast. Yet others, like Resist and Be The Woman You Needed When You Were Younger, create direct address, and sometimes empathy. Sometimes, the viewer takes the vantage point of the artist, and the piece becomes a further study in introspection. The titles, like The Bottom Line and Read Between the Lines, often invoke idioms, figures of speech, or stereotypes that themselves point back to the culture that produced them. As conceptual components, they are both playful and political, which, when juxtaposed against image to elicit a mood or reaction. For me, it’s different every time. I am often pricked to discover how the vernacular of Hollywood capitalism, juxtaposed to a powerful, nude self-portrait of a woman, almost always feels a bit surprising–as if I wasn’t expecting her to be there. Recent works, like Network, use both shadow and mirror to create a doubled image, the artist and her reflection, further suggesting the sense of a dialogue with the self. The two bodies are not a mirror image, though seen in a mirror: a conversation between two sides of oneself, rather than a literal twinning. Over the past decade, as this series took on greater and deeper life, Savannah and I have had countless wonderful discussions about women, bodies and art. As a former artist’s model, early in her career, she participated in the form of power that was available to her: that of the quieted muse. She knew she was being objectified, she recalls, but at least she was included in the club. I instantly recognized that message. She was still creating her own work, though, and one day, she realized she’d had enough of seeing herself through someone else’s lens. She turned the camera on herself, and began to take a very different kind of picture. During the pandemic, the feeling of being alone with oneself can sometimes feel overwhelming. These recent pieces reflect that agitation of the dialogue alone, the being with oneself, seeking connection..." - Katie Peyton Hofstadter Classic black and white silver gelatin print, signed by the artist Savannah Spirit. This is a self portrait of the artist. Categorize between self-portrait, contemporary feminism, take back control, I am my own muse, my body my choice...

David Levy created this vintage silver gelatin photograph in 1995. The image was taken in New Orleans, LA but not printed or editioned until 2010. It is signed in pencil, titled an...

Kate #2, 2002 by Leonard Freed is an 8" x 10" hand printed, signed by the photographer black and white photograph, stamped "vintage" by the Freed estate on verso (back of print).. M...

Nude #125, 1999 by Carl Hyatt is a signed, vintage gelatin silver, gold toned print. It is 8" x 10", matted 16" x 20", and signed. The photographer focuses on aesthetic and spiritual...

Handcuffed, New York City, 1978 is a 14" x 11" black and white lifetime print by Leonard Freed. Signed verso (back of photo) by Leonard Freed, with Freed's copyright stamp also verso, the image appears in Leonard Freed's seminal book "Police Work," published in 1980. For several years in the 1970s Leonard Freed worked alongside the New York police...

Kate #5, 2002 by American photographer Leonard Freed is an 8” x 10” signed black and white photograph stamped "vintage" by the Freed estate on verso (back of photo). Model, photograp...

Leonard Freed’s authenticated/stamped vintage (back of photo), 16" x 20", gelatin silver print, Kate #14, is from the Kate series, 2002. A photographer herself, model and yogini Kate remains complicit in striking dramatic poses for the Kate nude series by Freed. In this image Kate is supine, arms outstretched, body arched on the backside of a person in a downward dog yoga pose. On the edge of a cliff with the ebb and flow of the sea and waves many feet below, the duo remain in balance above swirling waters. Kate's trust in the universe, a face of abandon, reveals youthful fearlessness and love of freedom. Freed captures a self-possessed modern woman and partner in a dance of sorts that Kate shares on the edge of time...