Vote for Click2Houston's Best Art Gallery

John Cleary Gallery has recently been honored with a nomination for KPRC's Click2Houston's Best Art Gallery in the Houston area.  The KPRC Click2Houston's Best is an interactive city guide featuring promotional contests hosted by KPRC and powered by CityVoter.  The Click2Houston's Best profiles local businesses and allows consumers to vote for and recommend their favorites. 

The winner of Click2Houston's Best contest is determined by popular vote and every vote counts.  Voting ends on August 13, 2010 at 11:59 pm.  Click here to support and vote for John Cleary Gallery as the best art gallery in Houston.

                                

Gift of Gift of 2010 Vote Night and Party

New to the Houston photography scene this year is Gift of Gift of, an innovative idea from Curatorial Assistant in Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Natalie Zelt.  Aimed at young photography patrons who would like to help expand the collection at the MFAH but do not have the means to make a major donation individually, GOGO is a collective which raises money through ticket sales for a One Night Only event.  During the event, each attendee votes for his or her favorite piece on display, and the winning pieces are purchased with the pooled ticket funds and then offered as a gift of "Gift of Gift of" to the fantastic collection at the museum.

This year's Vote Night Party will feature delicious frozen treats from The Fruit Palette, tantalizing bites from POParazzi's POPcorn and you will be able to sip a signature GOGO beverage courtesy of Nouveau Antique Art Bar or frosty brew from St. Arnold Brewing Company while dancing to Grrrl Parts in the back yard.  It promises to be a fun time that benefits a worthy institution.


To purchase tickets or for more information on this exciting event, please visit the website at http://www.giftofgiftof.com/.  We hope to see you there!


- Catherine Pasho Couturier

John D'Agostino

John D'Agostino

The Arms of Undertow

archival pigment ink on canvas, 2008

According to John D’Agostino the shards of rescued Tiffany he photographs are used not as objects in a still life but as “negatives”. The combination of good lighting and Tiffany’s favrile glass create unique and beautiful biomorphic forms printed on sheets of archival canvas.

John D'Agostino

The Signature of All Things

archival pigment ink on canvas, 2009

John D’Agostino’s work is a continuation of his ancestor’s heritage and passion for the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. John D’Agostino’s grandfather, Vito D’Agostino, was such an admirer of Tiffany’s work that during his fall from public adoration and liquidation of Tiffany’s studios, Vito saved and salvaged dozens of boxes of Tiffany pieces from destruction. In the boxes collected were scrapbooks, original designs and favrile glass, the raw material intended for Tiffany’s stained glass. What Vito D’Agostino could not salvage was thrown into the East River. His grandfather’s passion for a fading art form is to thank for John D’Agostino’s modern day photographs.

John D'Agostino

Anasazi

archival pigment ink on canvas, 2009

Recently, John D’Agostino’s work and the history behind it have received a number of great reviews and publicity. Hunting Grounds, 2008 was featured on the cover of Glass #119, Summer ’10 with a nicely written article about D’Agostino and his work gracing the pages of the publication. In a lecture titled The 10 Most Exciting Photographers I Learned About in the Last Year given by Rebecca Senf at the Phoenix Art Museum, John D’Agostino is mentioned along with other photographers using photography in a way that presents the world in a manner such as the world has never seen. Also this summer, ARTFORUM's Art&Education published John D'Agostino's paper The Strength to Dream: How Remnants of the Past Illustrate a Legacy of The Representation of Vision. A special edition monograph, Empire of Glass, done with the Griffin Museum of Photography was recently released in 2009. Empire of Glass is a limited edition of 25 copies of 72 pages with 32 full color plates.

John D'Agostino

The Strength to Dream

archival pigment ink on canvas, 2009

To view John D’Agostino’s work or monograph in person, or if you have any questions about him or one of our other artists, please call or come by the gallery!


-Leah Hebert Fourmy

Found

Tom Hawkins

Obelisk and Meeting House:  Bonaire

platinum and palladium print 2000/2010

Found is an exhibition that brings recently discovered and emerging artists to the public eye and gives them a chance to display their work in a professional setting. This is the second Found exhibition the John Cleary Gallery has hosted. The artists selected to be in this show were hand picked by Catherine Couturier, the owner of the John Cleary Gallery, for their uniqueness, quality, and craftsmanship. The artists in Found were discovered in Houston’s FotoFest and New Orlean’s PhotoNOLA.

Michael Donnor
Elizabeth
waxed gelatin silver print

FotoFest’s portfolio reviews at the Meeting Place occur biennially and PhotoNOLA’s portfolio reviews take place annually. Both events offer the opportunity for artists to get their work exposure and for the reviewers to see the latest and most contemporary work not yet on the market. These mutually beneficial experiences were the catalyst behind Found.

John Chervinsky

All Watched Over

archival pigment ink, 2005

Found features artists who hail from as far away as Switzerland to as close by as Houston. Artists selected to be in the exhibition are Darryl Baird, Edward Eakins, EJ Major, Elaine Ling, Ferit Kuyas, Gerald Pisarzowski, Isa Leshko, Jessica Somers, John Chervinsky, John D’Agostino, Michael Donnor, Niniane Kelley, Robert Covington, Renate Aller, Tom Hawkins, and Trudy Cohen. Found will be each artist’s first exhibition at the John Cleary Gallery.

John D'Agostino

The Arms of Undertow

archival pigment ink on canvas, 2008

Come by the gallery and see what we Found!

Congratulations to Mitch Dobrowner

Mitch Dobrowner

Storm Cell

Mitch Dobrowner has been selected as the first place winner in this year’s “Prix de la Photographie, Paris” (Px3) competition in the Nature and Nature-Sky categories for his Storm series. Dobrowner’s Storm series takes his landscapes to a different level by incorporating the turbulent elements of ominous and striking skies into the landscape, placing more emphasis on what is going on above the horizon line. As a result of Dobrowner’s first place status in the Nature category, his work will appear in the full-color Px3 Annual Book.

Mitch Dobrowner

Farm

Px3 strives to promote the appreciation of photography, to discover emerging talent, and to introduce photographers from around the world to the artistic community of Paris. Juried by leading editors, publishers, curators, gallery owners, consultants, creative directors, and art directors, Px3 brings the best of photography from across the globe to Paris. Artists have the option of submitting work in seven categories, which are advertising, photojournalism, book, book proposals, fine art, nature and portraiture.

Mitch Dobrowner

Cone

Also, there is a Public Choice Award and 39,481 votes were tallied in the first annual Prix de la Photographie Paris. So be sure to vote for Mitch here.

Mitch Dobrowner

Clouds

Submit your work to Px3 for next year’s competition:

Simply fill out the entry form and send it with your work to Px3. You can submit as many photographs in as many categories as you want.

Mitch Dobrowner

Volcano with Cloud

- Leah

Niniane Kelley & Jessica Somers

Niniane Kelley

Parallel Pear

gum bichromate print

Niniane Kelley and Jessica Somers, both of whom will be in our upcoming Found exhibition on July 10, 2010, have exciting blog-worthy news.

Niniane Kelley

Parallel Snapdragon

gum bichromate print

Niniane Kelley will be presenting her work and discussing the historical photographic process of gum bichromate printing, which she uses in her own photography. Niniane, along with Brian Taylor, Hedwig Heerschop, and Rob Shaffer, will be giving an overview of gum bichromate printing and its current use by contemporary artists. If you live in or are planning to be in the San Francisco Bay Area tomorrow evening, this will be a fun, free, and informative event, open to everyone.

This event is at Gallery 291, on Friday, June 11, 2010, beginning at 6:30 pm.

Jessica Somers

Each New Chapter with Wonder

from Day 5 - May 26th, 2010, One Hundred Days 2010

Our other featured artist, Jessica Somers is working on an interesting and exciting project called One Hundred Days, in which she takes a photograph every day for one hundred days and posts it on her blog. The blog will create a narrative one photograph at a time. One Hundred Days is a summer collaborative project put into motion by artist volunteers. Jessica participated in the collaboration last summer and explored the tintype process.

Jessica Somers

Mundane Bliss Rushes In

from Day 19 - June 9th 2010, One Hundred Days 2010

Jessica will not be developing the work with her usual alternative processes, such as Ziatypes, or the traditional gelatin silver prints, but digital photography in color; however, despite Somers’ change of photographic medium, the images in the project so far are still resonating with her elegant and poetic style of photography.

Coming soon:  More information about Found and the artists that will be featured in the exhibition.

-Leah

Maria Levitsky: Interior

Above:  Maria Levitsky, Dijon Art School Corridor, 2004/2010, platinum and palladium print

Please join us Saturday, June 5, from 6 – 8 p.m. for the opening of Maria Levitsky: Interior. The show will run through July 2, 2010. The artist will be in attendance for her first John Cleary Gallery exhibition.

Above:  Maria Levitsky, Roosevelt Stairs, Double Platinum, 2003/2009, platinum and palladium print

New York based photographer Maria Levitsky has been working for over a decade in analogue printing techniques including alternative processes which employ copper, silver, platinum, and gold. Interior will feature her platinum-palladium prints which examine the relationship between architectural space and perception of light and how these facets influence each other in the making of a photograph. The rich palette of platinum-palladium allows the small shifts of light and shadow to be revealed. The subtlety of light coming through in the photograph is especially important in Levitsky’s photographs because she employs only available light conditions.

Above:  Maria Levitsky, Dijon Warehouse 1, 2004, platinum and palladium print

Levitsky’s work has been shown in galleries in New York, Boston and San Francisco and in several publications including the Crime issue of the Paris Review. Levitsky has been supported by residencies at the Macdowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and by a fellowship from The Camargo Foundation. Maria is a former dancer and performance artist whose resume includes a stint as the Coney Island Freakshow snake dancer/electric lady, as well as a music DJ with an occasional radio show. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Come experience the work of Maria Levitsky first hand at John Cleary Gallery.