{"id":23218,"date":"2013-10-02T14:04:22","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T20:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=23218"},"modified":"2023-11-25T17:30:15","modified_gmt":"2023-11-25T23:30:15","slug":"active-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/active-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Active Light: Photographic Experiments in Lighting and Chemistry at the Woodbury Museum of Art"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-23218 gallery-columns-4 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/active-light\/sunburned_gsp_616\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_616-1-290x290.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_616-1-290x290.jpeg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_616-1-120x120.jpeg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_616-1-360x360.jpeg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/active-light\/sunburned_gsp_691-1200x955\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_691-1200x955-1-290x290.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_691-1200x955-1-290x290.jpeg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_691-1200x955-1-120x120.jpeg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_691-1200x955-1-360x360.jpeg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/active-light\/sunburned_gsp_698-1200x725\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_698-1200x725-1-290x290.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_698-1200x725-1-290x290.jpeg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_698-1200x725-1-120x120.jpeg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/SUNBURNED_GSP_698-1200x725-1-360x360.jpeg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/active-light\/sunburned_gsp_450\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Sunburned_GSP_450-1-290x290.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Sunburned_GSP_450-1-290x290.jpeg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Sunburned_GSP_450-1-120x120.jpeg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Sunburned_GSP_450-1-360x360.jpeg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Photography liberated painting says the traditional narrative of art history. Freed by the advent of photography from the burden of faithful reproduction, artists of the nineteenth century began experimenting with their mediums, stretching their descriptive possibilities while exploring new manners of seeing and understanding the world. Something similar seems to be happening to photography.<\/p>\n<p>Now that digital cameras and post-production software have made it possible for just about anyone to take a great photograph, and economical enough to take photographs of just about everything, the chemical aspect of the technology is attracting new adherants and propelling a flurry of creative experimentation. Photographers are returning to chemical processes not simply because the images look better \u2014 the way music afficionados prefer vinyl over digital; they are also returning to chemicals for their experimental possibilities. Whether achieved through accident or systematic trial and error, chemical photography can create astonishingly fresh ways to see and understand the world.<\/p>\n<p>Take Matthew Allred, the Utah photographer showing this month at Finch Lane Gallery. Allred leaves his pinhole cameras out for weeks and even months at a time, allowing the sensitive materials to interact with the available light as days and even seasons pass. The results are ghostly images in which a bright colored band marks the diurnal path of the sun over the allotted days. The extended exposures and dominant light source causes everything momentary to disappear and even any fixed structure to be reduced to a vague silhouette. Allreds\u2019 are visually compelling images reeling with poetic implications on the transitory nature of experience.<\/p>\n<p>Chris McCaw, one of two artists exhibiting currently at the Woodbury Museum of Art in an exhibit titled\u00a0<em>Active Light<\/em>, does something similar. His silver gelatin images track the sun\u2019s path over a shorter period of time, but in a very visceral way. McCaw stumbled on his technique during a camping trip that involved too much whisky: when McCaw forgot to wake up to close the shutter on an all night exposure, the rising sun burned the negative and ruined the image. McCaw embraced the inadvertant folly, and now purposely exposes his silver gelatin negatives to the effects of the sun over long exposures. The overall tonality of his black and white images becomes inverted in a process called solarization, while the sun literally burns the paper either in a single point, like a cigarette burn, or in an arc across the sky, making the final image resemble a cross between Ansel Adams and Lucio Fontana. In addition to the visual interest of their unique and inverted tones, McCaw\u2019s images radiate with both heat and movement so that the viewer feels the burning presence of the sun, can almost smell the cooking gelatin, and senses the spinning sphere beneath their feet.<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-2' class='gallery galleryid-23218 gallery-columns-2 gallery-size-medium'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/active-light\/barryunderwood_prospero\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Prospero-350x350.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Prospero-350x350.jpeg 350w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Prospero-1024x1024.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Prospero-290x290.jpeg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Prospero-768x768.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Prospero-120x120.jpeg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Prospero-360x360.jpeg 360w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Prospero.jpeg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/active-light\/barryunderwood_oberon_titania\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Oberon_Titania-350x350.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Oberon_Titania-350x350.jpeg 350w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Oberon_Titania-1024x1024.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Oberon_Titania-290x290.jpeg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Oberon_Titania-768x768.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Oberon_Titania-120x120.jpeg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Oberon_Titania-360x360.jpeg 360w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BarryUnderwood_Oberon_Titania.jpeg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>McCaw\u2019s exhibition partner, Barry Underwood, approaches light in a dramatically different way, though he too is interested in chemicals and the land. Underwood investigates rural, suburban and urban sites, studying their various uses and in them creates light installations that he documents with his camera. Using LED lights, glowsticks, balloons and other apparatus (the magician is understandably hesitant to reveal his tricks), Underwood intervenes on a scene, providing otherworldly presence to natural and industrial scenes. In some instances Underwood\u2019s images resemble over-produced commercial photography, and the artist plays up the artificiality of his constructed images with Shakespearean titles like \u201cProspero\u201d and \u201cOberon and Titiana.\u201d In other cases, though, where a mountainside is lit up by a field of pale yellow lights, or a school of fish is implied by green orbs floating in a lake, we are reminded of the variety and mystery of nature, like the field of lightning bugs that appears in one of Underwood\u2019s images.<\/p>\n<p>In Active Light, both arists are using nature, chemical reactions and light to create compelling images. That McCaw\u2019s images feel more closely connected with the natural world, more raw or honest, may simply have to do with analog nostalgia \u2014 that impulse to enjoy the hiss in a vinyl record.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/underwood1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-50409\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/underwood1.jpg\"  alt=\"\" width=\"595\" height=\"592\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"byline\"><em>Active Light<\/em>, featuring the work of Barry Underwood and Chris McCaw is at the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.uvu.edu\/museum\/\" target=\"new\" rel=\"noopener\">Woodbury Art Museum<\/a>\u00a0in Orem through October 19.<br \/>\nMatthew Allred\u2019s\u00a0<em>Heliography<\/em>\u00a0opens at\u00a0Finch Lane Gallery\u00a0on October 4, 6-8pm, and continues through November 15.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"taxonomies\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photography liberated painting says the traditional narrative of art history. Freed by the advent of photography from the burden of faithful reproduction, artists of the nineteenth century began experimenting with their mediums, stretching their descriptive possibilities while exploring new manners of seeing and understanding the world. Something similar [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[1123],"class_list":["post-23218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-woodbury-art-museum"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/blogactivelight.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-03 15:22:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23218"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72316,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23218\/revisions\/72316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}