Bill Armstrong
Spirit: from the Infinity Series
Artist Talk, Book Signing, and Opening Reception
Book Signing and Reception 6:00 - 7:00 pm
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"A world just beyond our grasp, where place may be suggested, but is never defined, and where the identity of the amorphous figures remains in question. It is a world that might exist in memory, in dreams, or, perhaps, in a parallel universe yet unvisited."
-Bill Armstrong
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Spirit: from the Infinity Series
November 20, 2010- February 6, 2011
Bill Armstrong's Infinity series transforms re-photographed and appropriated images to create ephemeral, abstracted and de-materialized color fields and strongly evocative iconic figures. Working with source material as diverse as African masks, Roman busts, statuary and other representations, Armstrong's finished figurative and portrait images are powerfully evocative of an unseen presence.
Spirit presents selections from five of the series that make up Bill Armstrong's Infinity project. Working with his unique process of re-photographing appropriated images and subjecting them to a series of manipulations; Armstrong exploits the integrating capacities of camera focus to merge image details, edges and colors to create seamless color fields and mysterious, iconic figures.
"The Mandala and Buddha images refer to Eastern spirituality. Mandalas are concentric circles of images that depict central themes in Buddhism, such as theWheel of Lifeor the Map of the Cosmos. Through abstraction, blur and simplification, I explore these broad themes that remain open and invite the viewer's personal interpretation. The Mandalas change as one gazes into them, pulsating as if alive, and inviting an inquiry into the idea of "being" within the inanimate. The Buddhas address mutability versus permanence; their soft luminosity suggests transcendence.
Masks & Skulls refers to African masks and ideas about "evil spirits." I take concrete objects, with their powerful, symbolic associations of fear and death-what Andre Malraux called "the night side of man"-and subtly shift their meaning by transforming them. The resulting abstractions hold some of the residual dark power of the original object, but are softened, both literally and figuratively, into something illusory and weightless.
In the Apparitions series some of the images are dark, ghoulish visions, yet others are hopeful, spiritual presences. The powerful features of these Romans-emperor and soldier alike-bear witness to the eternal truths of the human condition and the precarious balance of hope and fear.
On another level, the work resonates for me personally. I made these images soon after my father died of cancer, yet it was only later that I understood that I had been trying to communicate with him through the medium of light-sensitive materials. This evidence of the power of subconscious motivation was a revelation to me, and the fact that some of the ghostly images actually resembled my father was uncanny. So Apparition is a personal quest to come to grips with the horror of death and the hope of redemption through image making.
The Figures represent the common household notion of ghosts and spirits. I refer here to the widely-held, late19th century belief that mediumistic photography would prove the existence of ghosts, and to the many hucksters who claimed to prove it with sham pictures. More seriously, I hope the ghosts and silhouettes can be seen as visions of the human soul." -Bill Armstrong
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Bill Armstrong holds a B.A. in art history and an M.B.A. from Boston University. His work has recently been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Gallery Kayafas; ClampArt, New York; Dolby Chadwick, San Francisco; the Silver Eye Center for Photography; DeSantos Gallery; Scott White Contemporary Art; Sara Nightingale Gallery; Hackelbury Fine Art, London; the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Images from the Infinity series have been featured in major group exhibitions at commercial and public galleries in Europe and the US including the Center for Creative Photography, the Center for Fine Art Photography; Houston Center for Photography; the Victoria and Albert Museum; Aperture Foundation; Ambient Art Projects; the DeCordova Museum; the Photographic Resource Center; the International Center of Photography; Forma Centro Internazionale di Fotografia; Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam; Musee De l'Elysee, Lausanne; Recontres D'Arles, Arles and the Hayward Gallery, London.
Armstrong's photographs have appeared in a number of major publications including The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography (2009); Photographic Possibilities(2007); Face: The New Photographic Portrait (2006);Exploring Color Photography(2004) as well as in the Boston Globe; New York Times; Utne Reader and the New Yorker. His work is in numerous public collections including the Brooklyn Museum, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Addison Gallery of American Art; Bibliotheque Nationale de France; Musee De l'Elysee; Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Southeast Museum of Photography; Museum of the City of New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Armstrong lives and works in New York where he is also an adjunct faculty at the School of Visual Arts and the International Center of Photography.
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Catalogs available in the museum gift shop:
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Mandala by Bill Armstrong
Introduction by Katherine Ware
Published and released by Photo-Eye
$20.00 tax included
Like other portfolios in his series Infinity, Armstrong's mandalas are made from collages he creates and then photographs with the camera's focusing ring set on infinity. He then creates chromogenic prints from the resultant negatives. By taking an out-of-focus photograph, the artist concentrates not on detailed form and subject but on the rich, saturated colors that shift and pulsate in relation to one another, inviting an inquiry into the interconnectedness of all things.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2008
44 pp., Numerous color illustrations, 9x9"
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Apparition by Bill Armstrong
Introduction by A.D. Coleman
Published and released by Photo-Eye
$20.00 tax included
The mysterious and powerful images in this body of work capture fleeting 'visitations' from the spirit world - visions as they might appear in dreams or heightened states of wakefulness. The photographs are made using Armstrong's unique process of re-working found images and photographing them extremely out of focus. In this case, the original source materials are reproductions of Roman sculpture shot with the camera lens set at infinity.
The meanings underpinning Apparition radiate in a number of directions. While many of the images are dark, ghoulish visions, others are hopeful spiritual presences. For Armstrong, the ghosts of ancient Rome represent particularly appropriate messenders of our time, as we contemplate the fate of our own empire.
Clamp Art, New York, 2005
Unpaged, 16 full-color plates, 8½x11"
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Saturday, November 20, 2010
5:00 - 7:00pm
Exhibition opening lecture, book signing, and reception
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MUSEUM HOURS
OPEN - Tues, Thurs, Fri: 11-5 pm; Wed: 11-7 pm; Weekends: 1-5 pm
June, July and December Hours: Tues-Sun: 12-4 pm
CLOSED - Mondays and for the following dates:
Easter Sunday, Daytona 500 Weekend, Daytona State College Spring Break, July 4, July 31-August 17, Thanksgiving Weekend, December 17 - January 11
MUSEUM LOCATION
Unless noted otherwise, all museum exhibitions, events and films are presented at the Southeast Museum of Photography which is located on the Daytona Beach campus of Daytona State College at 1200 International Speedway Blvd, three miles east of 1-95.
The museum is located in the Mori Hosseini Center (Bld. 1200).
Visitor parking is available. Gallery Admission is free.
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Southeast Museum of Photography
A Service of
Daytona State College
1200 W. International Speedway Blvd.
Daytona Beach, FL 32114
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