Architectural Landscapes

ARCHITECTURAL LANDSCAPES

Architectural Landscapes: Benny Chan, Ola Kolehmainen, Tom Rossiter, and Danny Singer The exhibition of works by Benny Chan, Ola Kolehmainen, Tom Rossiter, and Danny Singer showcase the diversity of architectural photography, situating them in the landscape of nature and society. The exhibition demonstrates how these works harness the language of photography to explore architectonics in constructed and natural environments. Although often devoid of humans, the photographs reflect our interactions with architectural landscapes. Taken one step further, these prints hint at the role of architecture in society and in nature. In the images of Benny Chan, the viewer becomes immersed in the construction of buildings, stripping the glamour of LA’s urban scenery to establish the work behind the façade. The process becomes the product. In the work by Ola Kolehmainen, buildings appear to splinter, but in their abstraction the artist presents us with a more complete view of these edifices which create their own environments. Like Kolehmainen, Tom Rossiter’s photographs aim to give the viewers a more total view and understanding of a building by showing both the façade and a glimpse into its heart. It is as if an architectural analytique showing both a building’s exterior and interior has been brought to reality. For Danny Singer, the architecture of the rural West melts into the vast cathedral of the sky. The photographs examine the relationship between architectural settings and the natural landscapes of the West. Architectural Landscapes illustrates the diversity of architecture both within and as the landscape.

In his photography, Benny Chan strives to create images that stand out in a world increasingly overloaded with visual stimulation. He uses his camera to represent his impressions about the world we inhabit and to illustrate contemporary political and social issues. Benny sees Los Angeles as a mega-scale metropolis, at once utopic and dystopic in filmic representation—the lens through which much of the world views the city. It is the subject matter of many of Benny’s fine artworks, and they reflect this duality.

Selected Exhibitions: Lawrence Man Gallery Solo Exhibition Acme Gallery Group Exhibition Gallery C 2007 Group Exhibition Pasadena Museum of California Art “Traffic” 2009 Solo Exhibition Christopher Mount Gallery 2014 Solo Exhibition Award and prizes:

Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award 2018 Exhibition on May 12th 2018 at WUHO Gallery

BENNY CHAN

Benny Chan

Plaza Hotel Renovation inkjet print 55 x 42 in.

2017

Benny Chan The Broad

inkjet print 53 x 64 in.

2017

Benny Chan

The Collective Playa Vista inkjet print 59 x 76 in.

2015

Benny Chan

United States Court House inkjet print 59 x 61 in.

2015

In his monumental photographs of modern architecture, Ola Kolehmainen zeroes in on a building’s unremarkable details, reducing facades to simple forms and blocks of color evocative of abstract Minimalist paintings. His current, most recent narrative works focus on exteriors and interiors of sacred buildings that he started after spending an intense work phase in Istanbul in 2014 researching buildings of the Ottoman and Byzantine Period.

Solo shows 2018 - Sacred Spaces - Ola Kolehmainen, Galeria Senda, Barcelona 2017 - Ola Kolehmainen: Sketches of Spain, Studio Session, Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki Sketches of Spain, Galeria Senda, Barcelona 2015 - Ola Kolehmainen: Sense of Volume, Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki Group shows 2018 - Katlen Hewel, Axel Hütte, Ola Kolehmainen, Martina Wolf "THERE WILL BE LIGHT" curated

by Axel Hütte, Galerie Nikolaus Ruzicska, Salzburg

OLA KOLEHMAINEN

Ola Kolehmainen

Hagia Sophia year 537 IV c-print, silicon mounted on diasec 91 3/8 x 71 1/2 in.

2014

Ola Kolehmainen

Pantheon 128 AD II

c-print, silicon mounted on Diasec 87 x 88 3/4 in.

2017

At Rhode Island School of Design, while studying architecture, I learned to render buildings in the style of The Ecole des Beaux Arts analytiques with fine drawing and watercolor. Analytiques are rendered drawings that, in a single page, can describe a concept for an entire building, often including plans, sections, elevations, ornamental details, cut away sections illustrating the interior, and reflected ceiling plans.

I was inspired to test this technique out photographically. This is not an exercise in pure representation. Rather it is an exploration of my experience of architecture.

The process brings me closer to the rich histories of buildings, which are a physical manifestation of the people, and institutions that make them, care for them, protect and destroy them. It is ultimately a very human endeavor played out across the world through the ages.

Rossiter graduated from RISD with a BFA and a Bachelors of Architecture and The Senator Claiborne Pell Award for Excellence in Art and Architectural History. He has had numerous exhibitions of his photographs in galleries and institutions including current shows in Chicago and Palm Springs. He recently photographed the images for the book Building Ideas: An Architectural History of the University of Chicago.

TOM ROSSITER

Tom Rossiter

Kimbell Art Museum photograph laminated on Dibond 31 3/4 x 64 1/8 x 1 1/4 in.

2018

Tom Rossiter Notre Dame

photograph laminated on Dibond 47 3/4 x 31 3/4 x 1 1/4 in.

2017

Tom Rossiter Senanque Abbey

photograph laminated on Dibond 31 3/4 x 47 3/4 x 1 1/4 in.

2017

The prairie is a wonderful place to see how things connect to one another. These photographs encourage us to question physical relationships. The relationship between the diverse structures and the spaces between them. The relationship between the entire street and the land it rests on and the relationship of the people, who’s presence is often only implied.

Born: Edmonton, AB Lives and works in Vancouver, BC Public Collections National Gallery of Canada National Gallery of Victoria, Australia Denver Art Museum University of Lethbridge Art Gallery Canada Council Art Bank Canada Fund: Rideau Hall, Ottawa, ON Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB Canada Department of Foreign Affairs, Ottawa, ON Canadian Embassy Berlin, Germany Canada House London England Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, SK Moose Jaw Art Gallery & Museum, SK Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2017 - Artifact Gallery Jones Vanvouver BC 2015 - Photo Paris LA 2016 - Standing Still, Denver Art Museum, Denver CO 2015 - The 100th Meridian, Gallery Jones Vancouver BC 2014 - Welcome to Ms Meagans Munchies Trepanier Baer, Calgary AB 2013 - Small Beneath The Sky "new work", Gallery Jones Vancouver BC New Work Trepanier Baer Calgary AB Art in Transit, various locations across Canada 2011 - Drive By, Seymour Art Gallery, North Vancouver, BC New Work, Gallery Jones, Vancouver, BC Big Sky, Trepanier Baer, Calgary, AB

DANNY SINGER

Danny Singer Arcola Sky photograph 43 x 91 in.

2014

Danny Singer Oxford Sky Neb photograph 43 x 79 in.

2015