TRANSFORM: Judith Golden and Holly Roberts
About the Exhibition
The exhibition presents the works of two artists who alter photographic surfaces and challenge the pristine purism of the straight print. The works in the exhibition explore and extend the boundaries of traditional notions of the medium of photography. Judith Golden and Holly Roberts transform photographs.
TRANSFORM includes Judith Golden’s cibachrome (print from color positive) photographs and mixed media works from two bodies of work The Elements (1984-1985) and Cycles (1983 and ongoing), and recent work influenced by these earlier series and her continuing interests in mythology and psychology, and Holly Roberts’ silver gelatin prints painted and collaged on canvas. Through her method of collage– assemblages of photographic portraits and figure studies, appropriated imagery, attached objects and a sophisticated use of hand-applied color, drawing and use of mixed media frames– Judith Golden transforms her subjects drawn from Native American rituals, mythology, Jungian psychology and the study of dreams into archetypal characters.
Holly Roberts transforms photographs with oil paint. Rather than serving merely as surfaces for holding paint, the photographs work as the indicators, inspirations, and starting points of given or perceived realities that she wants to transform. In the course of her process, Robert’s largely obliterates whatever the original photograph presented, so that it is impossible to know how much of a given image she actually used and how much she discarded. This adds a certain tension to the work. In almost all of her pictures, she leaves some part of the silver print surface untouched becoming the focal point and foil to what she has painted. Similarly, Roberts’ imagery draws from Native American rituals and symbols, but also a world of animals, beasts and emotionally laden experiences.