Multiples is an exhibition featuring artists who work with layering, montage, and collage in a multitude of styles. The spectrum of fully-digital to fully-analog lens-based practices using the facilities at Gallery 44 is seen throughout their work. Each artist brings their own aesthetic and technical approach to combining images.
Shelley Wildeman shoots multiple frames of the same scene and then layers her images to create a cinematic effect in a single image, just like watching a scene change before you. Wildeman used Gallery 44's digital imaging services, having her images professionally printed on the HP Designjet Z3200 on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta paper. She also made use of Gallery 44's print finishing facilities to cut and mount her pieces.
Randy Grskovic uses the paper, rather than the film, to create exposures by layering shapes, images, and toners — causing dissonance from what we expect a photograph to look like. Grskovic began using the Gallery 44 darkroom in 2013 with no previous photography experience. Over the past 5 years he has learned from members, using the darkroom as a laboratory to experiment, and he has now begun teaching others. He does all his own printing, toning, dry mounting and framing all within the facilities of Gallery 44.
Jim Hurtubise works with traditional analog darkroom materials to transform seemingly mundane objects to create an alternate reality. Through the use of multiple image montages, his work reveals the obvious, the arcane, and the ambiguous. The series Discarded examines perceptions and realities of disposability on a personal and societal level.
Hurtubise has been a member of Gallery 44 for more than ten years. He has been an active user of the facilities for developing film and printing gelatin silver prints in the members’ darkroom.
