The White Room Gallery Opens "Multi is The Media" | Hamptons Art HubHamptons Art Hub

The White Room Gallery Presents "Multi is The Media" for its Final Exhibition of 2018

Opening Reception: Saturday, December 1, 2018 from 5 to 7 p.m.

On View: November 30 to December 30, 2018.

The White Room Gallery is located at 2415 Main Street, Bridgehampton, NY 11932

Open Friday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and By Appointment

The White Room Gallery presents “Multi is The Media,” an exhibition that weaves together a myriad of muses that come to life in beautiful black and white photography, exquisite blown glass, provocative mixed media and more.

The group show features art by Jim Gemake, Keith Ramsdell and the art team of Bengt Hokanson and Trefny Dix. Added into the mix are selected gallery artists of The White Room Gallery including Alicia Gitlitz, Karen L. Kirshner, Phil Marco, Martha McAleer, Alyssa Peek, Cindy Press, Linda Sirow, CHO Yae Jae and others.

"Multi is The Media" is on view from November 30 to December 30, 2018. An Opening Reception takes place on Saturday, December 1, 2018 from 5 to 7 p.m. The White Room Gallery is located at 4515 Main Street, Bridgehampton, NY 11932. The gallery is open Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m to 5 p.m. and by appointment. www.thewhiteroom.gallery.

Read on for a preview of the featured artists in "Multi is The Media."

JIM GEMAKE

Being a mixed media artist, I primarily depend on the found or discarded object to achieve the elements of color, shape and texture that are so important in my work.

By assembling the discarded objects into something new or different, there is a sense of salvation, of bringing these objects to a new life and with a new meaning. Ultimately my work is about: CONSTRUCTION (the object in its original state); DECONSTRUCTION (the discarded object now torn, broken, weathered – i.e. not in its original state or condition); and RECONSTRUCTION (as it now appears in my art).

While my work is about change, I also try to bring the element of concealment and withholding to my pieces, leaving room for the imagination.

I am a self-taught artist. My work has appeared in a number of exhibitions and galleries and is in many private collections.

Artwork by Jim Gemake. Courtesy The White Room Gallery.

KEITH RAMSDELL

Keith Ramsdell uses long-exposure photography to create minimal seascape washes. He relies on the essential aspects of minimalism—line, shape and texture—to form greyscale images that are affecting in their simplicity. His work represents natural elements and manmade structures in congruence, reducing these parts of the landscape to their purest form. Each image conveys an almost surreal sense of stillness and balance that cannot be disturbed.

The ocean serves as Keith’s primary inspiration, and the predominant location of his work. A surfer since he was five years old, Keith has always lived and worked in close proximity to the water. His camera and surfing gear are never far from him. He attempts to capture his sensory experience of the beach, seizing on isolated subjects such as the granular surface of the sand, the undulations of the surf, a gnarled piece of driftwood, or the seemingly endless stretch of a dock. While his work comes from a deeply personal place, he hopes that his images also have a universal quality that makes them easily accessible and timeless.

Working in black and white allows Keith to detach himself from the chaotic reality of color, and enables a broader interpretation of the environment, offering up a space that can be filled by the viewer’s imagination. The technique of long-exposure photography elicits the subtle gradations of light and shadow that permeate his nature studies as well as his architectural subjects. Keith settles into and gets acquainted with a chosen site, by observing a place from different vantage points and through shifting degrees of light over time. He shoots with a combination of film and digital equipment, relying primarily on a manual Hasselblad medium-format camera. Taking anywhere from minutes to several hours, these long exposures reflect a process that is slow and deliberate from start to finish.

Keith often waits weeks for the perfect combination of elements to come together in a shoot. Through his lens, violent tropical storms or massive winter waves crashing on the beach are transformed into quiet, introspective moments. Spontaneous atmospheric effects, like a seeping mist, the changing of tide or descending cloud cover, can alter the initial idea of a piece entirely. In each resulting photograph, his aim remains the same, however: to strike a simple balance between the seen and the unseen—the stark realities of nature and the subtleties of personal perception.

Keith has a BFA in photography from Loyola Marymount University. His work hangs in private collections in Los Angeles, Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and New York. His work has appeared in Mono Chroma magazine (Issue 003) 2018 (forthcoming); Hamptons Magazine Winter Issue 2018 (forthcoming); B&W Minimalism, Issue 04, 2017 and B&W Minimalism, Issue 01, 2016. His awards include International Photography Awards, Honorable Mention in 2018 and 2017.

Photograph by Keith Ramsdell. Courtesy The White Room Gallery.

BENGT HOKANSON & TREFNY DIX

Hokanson Dix Glass was established in 1996 under the name Boar Glass Studio. The artists, Bengt Hokanson and Trefny Dix, are known for their distinctive blown glass forms and their mixed media sculptures. Contemporary Italian and Swedish glasswork, urban graffiti, world textiles, as well as forms and color patterns from nature have influenced their blown glasswork.

Bengt Hokanson graduated from Tulane University with a degree in Anthropology and a minor in Glass. After graduating, Bengt worked for glass artist, Gene Koss, and attended Pilchuck Glass School and The Corning Studio as both a student and as teaching assistant.

Trefny Dix graduated from Indiana University Bloomington with a B.F.A. in Sculpture and a B.A. in Art History. She has studied glass at Pilchuck Glass School and The Corning Studio as well as Drawing and Painting at the Art Students League, NYC.

Bengt and Trefny’s work is represented in private and public art collections throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe and in galleries throughout the United States, Canada and England.

Bengt and Treny say this about their work:

"We create blown glass and mixed media glass sculpture. Or interest in glass as a medium stems from the visual purity of glass and its ability to both illuminate and define a form. These two dynamic interactions have always inspired us and made glass an exciting material for our explorations of color, light and form. These elements of glass: its clarity, its fluid qualities, its ability to capture color, pattern and texture, are all at play in each of our pieces.

In much of our work, we are attempting to make, or capture, a moment in time when the glass, energized by its state of balance, or unbalance, its color, pattern, and form, expresses movement.

Bengt's family background is Swedish and my family background is Czechoslovakian. Both Sweden and the former Czechoslovakia have rich glass working and glass art traditions whose influences can be seen in our work. We use many Swedish glass blowing techniques while creating our work. The Swedes use of thick, clear glass, vivid color and simple forms has influenced our style and aesthetic. Through the use of color and form, we have tried to create the feeling of the beautiful, lush and stark Scandinavian landscape. Bengt's travels to Sweden as a child left him with a sense of the Swedish aesthetic.

The work of contemporary Czechoslovakian glass artists has also influenced our work. The Czechs use of abstract forms, pure color and their exploration of the optic qualities of glass, has interested us for many years. Their interest in glass as pure form, one that defines the object, has inspired us to use light refraction and transparency as major elements in our work. We often use the interplay of patterns
and reflected light to emphasize our forms and to suggest motion. We understand reoccurring themes in our work as tributes to our families homelands.

Artwork by Bengt Hokanson and Trefny Dix. Courtesy of The White Room Gallery.