KLOMPCHING GALLERY is delighted to announce FRESH 2016, the gallery’s annual summer exhibition.

The exhibition will open with an Artist Reception on Wednesday, July 13, 6pm–8pm, we hope you can join us and look forward to seeing you. 

FRESH 2016 is co-curated by Darren Ching and W.M. Hunt, from an international call for submissions. Four new or rising voices are presented, with each photographer engaging with subject and medium in their own unique way. 

With the Grey Series, John A. Chakeres is concerned with quiet studies of texture, form, surface, color and light. The large-scale color photographs of walls are monochromatic and exquisitely detailed. Chakeres says: “… a wall begins as a canvas, a two-dimensional surface, a foundation on which to build an image”. The image that Chakeres builds is one of unknowability—in scale, location, purpose or time. He is not interested in the function of these walls, but rather their being. We see details of wear and tear, gradations of the color grey, absence of perspective and formality of line. In many ways, they could be likened to anonymous portraits, whereby the viewer imposes their own identity and narrative.

The study of the vernacular image drives Jennifer Greenburg’s delightful Revising History series. This is an investigation – perhaps even an exposé – of how photographs are co-opted to underwrite particular fantasies. Her work sets out to create a dialogue about the photograph as simulacrum, engaging in layered truths, through the insertion of her herself into the photographs, and replacing the central figure. The black and white photographs of re-imagined snapshots, defy their original and usual scale, presenting a meaningful concept by means of light-hearted scenarios coupled with diaristic titles.

Antonio Jacob Martinez’s, How To Hug and Other Sublimation of Men, is a refreshingly different take on the depiction of amateur cagefighters. Having trained for 2 years in the sport himself, he presents photographs that teeter between tenderness and violence, aggression and vulnerability. We see the hand of the artist, emphasizing the transformational process of the body and in particular, the dissolution of flesh. These unusual photographs, saturated in color and quite painterly, are visually captivating, providing an up-close and personalized insight into a highly-charged sport.

Precious Metal is a collection of medical implants, photographed following removal from human bodies. Sarah Sudhoff brings to attention the practice of medical implant recycling, which is a “common practice for most crematoriums in the United States and abroad”. Contextually isolated, the implants are marked by the destructive crematoria process and of the human body. It’s surprisingly easy to match the object to its function, less easy to imagine the bulky foreign objects as having once beeninside. The photographs are detached, no remorse, no nostalgia, very matter-of-fact in their documentation.  

FRESH 2016 expands across the wall, the page and the internet—by showcasing the four photographers in the following ways: 

THE WALL with an exhibition at the Klompching Gallery
THE PAGE by being featured in BLINK magazine
THE INTERNET with an online interview in At Length Mag

In addition to the exhibition, Klompching Gallery is showcasing photographs by the following 10 short-listed FRESH 2016 photographers on the gallery’s website:Hannah Smith Allen, Ben Altman, Kurt Geisler, Photographer Hal, Teri Havens,Richard Kolker, Nigel Maister, Christos Palios, Donna Pinckley and Martina Shenal.