current exhibition

©Kim Kauffman

FLORIOGRAPHY
The Language of Flowers

June 7 - August 5, 2013

As the spring and summer flowers emerge to delight our senses, Galerie BMG celebrates with a group exhibition of new floral photographic work by gallery artists. Floriography, or the language of flowers, emerged in the Victorian era as a means of communication using flowers to express feelings which otherwise could not be spoken. The images on display, created with various photographic and mixed media, communicate with us using the intense sensuality of their color, form and texture. Among the artists featured in the show will be Brigitte Carnochan, Kim Kauffman and Leah Macdonald.

For her new series of photographs, Brigitte Carnochan has chosen one of the oldest photographic processes - platinum / palladium, for its extravagantly long tonal range, depth, and permanence. Her subject matter, as always, comes mostly from her own garden - she describes emerging from her garage darkroom directly into the garden to sit quietly among the roses, peonies, grasses, dogwood, rhododendrons and iris while waiting for a fifteen minute platinum exposure-a meditation both reassuring and inspiring.

Leah Macdonald's images are inspired by her fascination with nature and designs that have floral and intricate forms. Starting with photographic prints, the images are embellished with layers of beeswax, colored wax, painting and drawing. The ability to layer mediums and constantly change appearance and texture allows the images to stray from reality and respond to the artist's imagination.

Kim Kauffman's "photo-collages" combine flowers, leaves, seed pods and other objects of nature collected from gardens, with multiple images layered to create an abstract visual environment. The combinations are not necessarily real but bring to the forefront an intricacy of form that otherwise might be missed--the curve of a petal, the vein texture of a leaf, the pattern of seeds dispersing.

"Floriography" will be on display from June 7 through August 5, 2013. Gallery hours are Friday through Monday, 12-5 pm or other times by appointment. For further information, please contact the gallery at 845-679-0027.