DESERT EXPOSURE
SEPTEMBER 2018 • 17
LIGHT ART SPACE • ELVA K. ÖSTERREICH
New Life in Old Building
Photographer brings printmaking vision to Silver City
A
new gallery/work space celebrates a grand opening on Sept. 1 at 209 W. Broadway in Silver City, where Firecloud Traders once was housed. Karen Hymer has moved to Silver City permanently after owning a home and visiting for 10 years and is opening a space renovated not only to display art but also to make printmaking accessible to more people in the community. “We will be mostly photographic oriented with the back area of the building housing darkrooms and a printmaking studio with flexible hours. Another room will be a teaching space,” Hymer said. “I hope to really get in involved in the community. I would like to find artists who want to teach and can use that space. “I am trying to see if I can make a space that might be usable to people who might not have a printing press for instance, or who don’t have darkrooms but want to teach a certain process.” While the gallery’s opening exhibition is of Hymer’s own work, she plans to invite others to display there as well. The space will be a venue for this year’s Print Fiesta in October and will be hanging the work of an Arizona print group as a companion exhibit to the fiesta. “I’m very interested in alterna-
Two presses are being installed as part of a future workshop/ working space for printmakers at 209 W. Broadway in Silver City. (Photo by Elva K. Österreich)
“Food and Flesh 1” by Karen Hymer is part of the inaugural exhibition at Light Art Space in Silver City. (Image courtesy of the artist)
tive photographic processes like photogravure,” she said. “And a lot of the 19th century processes like sienna types, Van Dyke prints where you hand coat paper with photosensitive materials, gum bychromate printing, palladium printing and I also like to combine them with ink jet printing. I am a fine art inkjet printer also and I combine palladium and ink
jet prints. I love mixing the new technology and the old technology.” Hymer’s background includes college level teaching and running darkrooms in Pima, Arizona for 25 years but she also has practical business experience as a bed and breakfast owner as well. She said her bigger vision is to be part of Silver City as a week-
end destination, maybe bringing in artists for weekend workshops. “It’s such an easy drive from Tucson,” Hymer said. “People would come from Tucson, El Paso, Albuquerque, if you have the right person desirable to take a class from.” Hymer is interested in reaching out to those populations who are coming into their age to be artists. “I really want to reach different populations,” she said. “I think people my age, in their 60s and older who say ‘you know I used to paint when I was in high school.’ To me, that’s one of the wonderful things about the arts, I think it can really help humanity as a whole by everyone becoming more creative and reaching inside themselves to find their creative aspect in life.” “The Age & Seduction” exhibition runs through September into October and consists of Hymer’s
photogravures published in a book in May. These images deal with transitions of life and the aging body. For the images Hymer focuses on plants and different foods as aphrodisiacs as inspired by the Isabelle Allende cookbook, “Aphrodite, A Memoir of the Senses.” “I don’t photograph anyone under 50 for this project,” she said. “We are not seen as vibrant, as sexual, as sensual, and necessarily beautiful and those are sort of goals of mine, so I am photographing the body with fruits and vegetables that are considered aphrodisiacs.” The Sept. 1 exhibit opening take place from 5 to 8 p.m. at the gallery. Hymer wil be holding a photogravure demonstration from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Oct. 7 at the gallery as well. Visit lightartspace.com for more information.
Your Fall Getaway To
WEEKEND GALLERIES AT THE
October 5 - 8, 2018
Oct. 5-8, 2018 Silver City, New Mexico
• Gallery Receptions • Meet the Artists • Local Musicians
• Sunday Brunch Event • Live Theater • Fine Restaurants
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