What a cool way to start the summer! Last night we attended the opening of Brian Buckley’s “Ghost Ship” at ClampArt gallery in Chelsea. We provided the framing using white maple mouldings, museum board, Japanese paper hinges with rice paste for floating the work and museum glass. The art was delivered by our collaborative partners at Art Delivery Van.
One of Brian Buckley's cyanotype prints in the studio
Buckley is an artist whose process is dedicated to analog methods of photography and printing, a rarity in this age of digital imagery. His choice of cyanotypes for the work in “Ghost Ship” feels appropriate to the artist’s themes of Greek Mythology and his own experiences of the sea. Cyanotype is a nineteenth century process that predates silver gelatin photographic printing and which produces images in distinctive shades of blue. Buckley’s process involves mixing his own photosensitive chemicals and applying them in layers to watercolor paper. He uses a variety of brushes, sponges and even glass rods for his applications. The layers of chemicals contribute to the intended end result. He then uses large format negatives in combination with photogram techniques – placing objects directly onto the photosensitive paper - to produce the desired image.
Objects represented in “Ghost Ship” include: octopuses, rope, boats, bits of statuary and water. Buckley is fascinated by the sea itself and longs to be a mariner. This current body of work explores that fascination with the deep and loosely references Homer’s “Odyssey”, sirens, sea monsters and the like. Buckley’s impressive career includes a foundation scholarship to Parsons School of Design, working under master printer Ira Mandelbaum at Ken Taranto Photo Lab and working with photographer Sheila Metzner. He has been published in Fotomagazin, Germany, The Photo Review and New York Magazine among others.
Buckley has exhibited internationally and is a collaborating artist at Adam Fuss Studio. We are so lucky to have Brian as our neighbor here at the Clemente and excited to be a part of his success!
We feel very proud that we framed the work Inta Ruka for her next show in NYC. She is one of the most famous photographers in Latvia, and one of the leading portrait-photographers of our time. Ruka received a scholarship from the Hasselblad Foundation in 1998, the Spidola Award of the Latvian Culture Foundation in 1999 and a scholarship from the Villa Waldberta in Feldafing in 2002. One year later, the Artist's Union of Latvia awarded her the "Prize of the Year 2003."
Inta Ruka's photographs have already been presented in several important international exhibitions. In 1999, she took part at the 48th Venice Biennale which finally publicized her name internationally.
Her art dealer, Marina Goldena contacted Frames and Stretchers from Latvia and brought us personally Ruka's pictures. We designed the framing up to the highest standards and only using museum materials. The result was sublime.