Pedernal Crossing. Photo by Tony Jackson
Native Landscape Gifting A Native Horse. Photo by Tony Jackson
STEP UP GALLERY NEWS RELEASE
A new exhibition featuring many never-before-seen photographic compositions by Santa Fe photographer Tony Jackson opens this week on November 21 and runs until December 31 in Step Up Gallery at Mesa Public Library. The public is invited to an opening reception on Saturday, November 23, from 2 to 3:30 p.m., with a gallery talk by the artist at 2:30 p.m. His talk is entitled “Photography in the History of Visual Arts.” Jackson’s talk will be video-taped and become available to view on Step Up Gallery’s YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCERx1XrO5N5NV4gE7bqm9Jw).
The exhibit, called “Eye Contact: Photographic Compositions by Tony Jackson,” features intriguing large-format photographs, most of which are Southwestern landscapes. Of the more than 40 images in the show, many are strictly black and white, but Jackson often highlights the features of the landscape that most interest him, sometimes with spot color, and sometimes by merely arranging the composition so that a particular subject takes center stage.
The photo “Native Landscape Giftng a Native Horse” captures a moment in a wide-open landscape with dramatic clouds, when a horse turns his head slightly to make eye contact with the photographer. er.
In his piece “Pedernal Crossing,” the water of Abiquiu Reservoir is highlighted with spot color, but the largest part of the composition is taken up with the sinuous lines of a piece of “desert driftwood.” The Pedernal anchors the composition although it takes up the smallest part of the photograph. .
Jackson sees photography as a continuation of a long human history of recording visual images. “A visual image results from a human mind/body’s eye-contact with a part of the world at a specific time/place,” he says in his artist statement. He sees the photography experience as a distinctly different way to engage with the world. “The more involved with photography you become, the more automatic it is to look at the world as possible photographs,” he says. “You still have an immediate eye-contact, but it’s different. You become about the visual world the way a geologist is about rocks, or a bird watcher is about birds. For a geologist it’s hard not to look at the world without making specific eye contact with rocks. Similar with a bird watcher and birds. It changes the way you pay attention. With both, the more involved you become, the more automatic it is to make eye-contact with those specific elements of the visual experience, even in just casually looking at the world.”
Step Up Gallery is located on the upper level of Mesa Public Library at 2400 Central Ave., Los Alamos. The gallery is open the same hours as the library: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Fridays; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays; and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays as well as most holidays. The library and gallery are closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day. Please visit www.stepupgallery.org for more information about the gallery.