Rebecca Blake

"Fashion Nude", 1980, Color Photograph by Rebecca Blake

1980

Alvin Carl Hollingsworth, American (1928 - 2000) - Nude #3, Medium: Lithograph, signed in the plate lower right, Size: 13.25 x 9.75 in. (33.66 x 24.77 cm), Frame Size: 21 x 17 inc...

Michael Knigin, American (1942 - 2011) - Acting Proud, Portfolio: Vintage Nudes, Year: 2001, Medium: Giclee signed, numbered, dated, and titled in pencil, Edition: AP, Image Size...

Michael Knigin, American (1942 - 2011) - Their in Tune, Year: 2002, Medium: Chromogenic Print on Canvas mounted to board, signed and dated lower left and signed, titled, numbered an...

Artist: Larry Bell, American (1939 - ) Title: Nude 1 Year: 1974 Medium: Silkscreen with Flocking, signed, dated and numbered in pencil Edition: 17/60 Image Size: 71 x 28.5 inches Siz...

HARRY BOWERS T E N P H O T O G R A P H S I DON'T LOOK FOR PHOTOGRAPHS I INVENT THEM I recall my first meeting with Harry Bowers in California a few years ago. As he produced his large-scale prints, I was at first flabbergasted, not only by their size, but by their seamless perfection. Technique appeared to be everything but then technique as technique simply vanished. After the first moment, tech­nique was no longer an issue, but rather a passageway to the imagery. Suffice it to say about Harry Bowers' working style that he is an obsessive man. Trained as an engineer, he has turned that discipline to art. His lenses, equipment and darkroom, much of it exactingly manu­factured by himself to answer certain needs, serve the desire of the artist to take photographic tech­nique to its ultimate perfection in invisibility and transparency. I respect obsession in art, and particularly in photography, because obsession in photography passes beyond the easy, middle ground of image making to a more demanding, more difficult, yet more rewarding end. Bowers' obsession is to eliminate "photography as technique." No grain, no decisive moments, no journalism, or, seemingly, direct auto­biographical endeavors appear in his work. Bowers is an artist of synthesis who controls his environment if only in the studio exactly to his liking. The images he creates are formal structures, saucy stories on occasion, which may offer hints of a darker, more frightening sexuality, but what you see is the end product of an experiment in which nothing save the original insight perhaps is left to chance. We seem fascinated with the idea of replication of reality in art. Popular painting frequently reproduces a scene "with the accuracy of a photograph," and photographs may "make you feel as though you were right there." The very invisibility of the photographic medium is important to Bowers, in that it allows him to maneuver his subject matter without concern for rendering it in an obvious art medium which would interfere with the nature of the materials he uses. The formal subtleties of Bowers' recent work are as delicious and ambiguous in their interrelationships as the best Cubist collages, yet while those col­lages always suggest their parts through edge and texture, these photographs present a structure through a surface purity. Bowers' earlier works, for example, the Skirts I Have Known series, were formed of bits of clothing belong­ing to Bowers and his wife or found at local thrift shops. These works fused an elegance of pattern and texture, reminiscent of Miriam Shapiro...

HARRY BOWERS T E N P H O T O G R A P H S I DON'T LOOK FOR PHOTOGRAPHS I INVENT THEM I recall my first meeting with Harry Bowers in California a few years ago. As he produc...

A large scale Cibachrome photograph. An abstract work from the series titled, "Fairfax Ladies," (the historic old Jewish neighborhood of Los Angeles) produced 1983. The subject was created through by placing diaphanous fashion garments onto photo-sensitive paper, embellishing them with objects, paper bits, and flora, and layering in painterly surfaces with scratches, completely covering the image. The series won a prize in the BCibachrome competition (1985), sponsored by BC Space Gallery (Laguna Beach, CA), and was exhibited at "Robin Valle: From Darkroom to Digital, Works from 1974-2009," posthumously presented August 2009 at El Camino College Gallery (Torrance, CA). Work presented under plexiglass in a custom wood frame. Work Size: 39.5 x 29.5 in. Framed Dimensions: 43.5 X 33.5 X 2 in. Valle, Robin Joy (1953-2009) After receiving her BA from SMU and an MFA in Photo/Cinematography from the University of Illinois in 1977, she moved to Los Angeles. Valle exhibited her one-of-a-kind Cibachrome photographs at galleries and museums locally and nationally. In 1982, she was selected for the NEA funded, "Life in LA" project, sponsored by the Los Angeles Women's Building. Valle taught photography at many Southland colleges as well as the LA County High School for the Arts. She was one of the first LA based photographers to explore digital media, receiving an Innovative Instruction Grant from Chaffee College in 1989 to create their first photography class in digital media. In 1998 she became a member of the full-time faculty at El Camino College, where she was instrumental in developing the Digital Arts program. Her work ranged from Black and white photographs to colorful, intricately layered patterns that command the gallery walls. It isn’t surprising that she, along with fellow art instructor, Joyce Dalal, contributed largely to the ECC art department’s merge towards digital art. As one of the first local photographers to explore digital media, she was crucial to the development of the Digital Arts Program. Before computers became commonplace, Valle’s techniques show a digital influence. “Her work was always inventive”, said ECC art curator, Susanna Meiers. An effect that can easily be done now with a few mouse clicks on Adobe Photoshop, required a long process of rubbing dye into the actual photograph in the ’70s. Her methods of illustrating were just as unique as the topics themselves. Photographs of the violent Chinese protest at Tiananmen Square in 1989 where military response murdered protestors in large numbers included photographing images from her television screen. “Crime Stats/ Hollywood” was a theme she dedicated to the gang violence around her neighborhood in the early ’90s. With washed out gang members as the focal point, and graffiti as well as mapped out grids of Los Angeles as the backdrop, Valle’s layering, collage-like technique is continued on and more developed. “There is a fanciful, imaginary quality of her work,” said Meiers. From her quirky pieces of birds, zebras, and even dinosaurs enveloped in patterned, colorful, designs to her more serious themed feminist pieces, her eclectic, colorful style breaks through. Her feminism is on display in “Expectations” which illustrates women’s ability to “look good and produce children.” A bright human embryo steals your attention dead center, with a “June Cleaver” type 1950’s woman smirking at you from either side of it. A mustard yellow backdrop, brings the entire piece together illustrating society’s views of women as well as her playfulness as an artist. “Robin was terribly funny and had a laugh that would just set people off,” Meiers said. The art curator designed a section of the gallery similar to Valle’s apartment. A bright pink shelf...

HARRY BOWERS T E N P H O T O G R A P H S I DON'T LOOK FOR PHOTOGRAPHS I INVENT THEM I recall my first meeting with Harry Bowers in California a few years ago. As he produced his large-scale prints, I was at first flabbergasted, not only by their size, but by their seamless perfection. Technique appeared to be everything but then technique as technique simply vanished. After the first moment, tech­nique was no longer an issue, but rather a passageway to the imagery. Suffice it to say about Harry Bowers' working style that he is an obsessive man. Trained as an engineer, he has turned that discipline to art. His lenses, equipment and darkroom, much of it exactingly manu­factured by himself to answer certain needs, serve the desire of the artist to take photographic tech­nique to its ultimate perfection in invisibility and transparency. I respect obsession in art, and particularly in photography, because obsession in photography passes beyond the easy, middle ground of image making to a more demanding, more difficult, yet more rewarding end. Bowers' obsession is to eliminate "photography as technique." No grain, no decisive moments, no journalism, or, seemingly, direct auto­biographical endeavors appear in his work. Bowers is an artist of synthesis who controls his environment if only in the studio exactly to his liking. The images he creates are formal structures, saucy stories on occasion, which may offer hints of a darker, more frightening sexuality, but what you see is the end product of an experiment in which nothing save the original insight perhaps is left to chance. We seem fascinated with the idea of replication of reality in art. Popular painting frequently reproduces a scene "with the accuracy of a photograph," and photographs may "make you feel as though you were right there." The very invisibility of the photographic medium is important to Bowers, in that it allows him to maneuver his subject matter without concern for rendering it in an obvious art medium which would interfere with the nature of the materials he uses. The formal subtleties of Bowers' recent work are as delicious and ambiguous in their interrelationships as the best Cubist collages, yet while those col­lages always suggest their parts through edge and texture, these photographs present a structure through a surface purity. Bowers' earlier works, for example, the Skirts I Have Known series, were formed of bits of clothing belong­ing to Bowers and his wife or found at local thrift shops. These works fused an elegance of pattern and texture, reminiscent of Miriam Shapiro...