DNJ Gallery is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition “Environmental Memory: Part 1 — Home Grown†featuring the photographs of Los Angeles artist Jane O’Neal. Gallery II features the work of Anne Veraldi in the show entitled “Melting Point.†Both exhibitions illustrate the artists’ contemporary perception of their surroundings.
DNJ first showed Jane O’Neal’s work in the exhibition “The Seventies Revisited.†Her large, striking, color Cibachrome prints resulted from the numerous, mundane subjects provided by the landscape of Los Angeles. She sought out scenery others had effectively ignored: glowing backyard pools, shopping carts under parking lot lights, empty lawn chairs, trunks of cars and roadside vistas. O’Neal’s work primarily used available lighting and the Southern California night sky.
O’Neal’s new s
eries “Environmental Memory: Part 1 — Home Grown†utilizes the same bold colors and available lighting. But instead of a camera, O’Neal uses a flatbed scanner to record images of plant matter from her backyard. To make these photographs, she brings her scanner out to her garden and captures the spider-like arms of a growing aloe plant or the bright pinks of a blooming cactus flower. She also collects the remains of dying plant matter and brings it into her studio. The images range from a sliced yellow onion, to a shriveled, dead banana flower stalk.
Due to the limited depth of field of the flatbed scanner, the images present 3-D material in a unique way. In the photograph “Root Ball,†some roots seem to nearly protrude from the image, while the background remains quietly distant. An abruption in the scanning process draws a star
k red horizon line across the protruding stem of the root ball. All of O’Neal’s images are beautiful, but there is an unsettling undertone to them. Just as Georgia O’Keefe used flowers as a metaphor for sexuality and abstraction, Jane O’Neal creates a similar sense of ambiguity and mystery.
Jane O’Neal has exhibited across the United States and her work is included in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and The Fogg Museum at Harvard University. She has worked as a still photographer on many popular movies such as “Peggy Sue Got Married,†“Beetle Juice,†“Beaches†and “City of Industry.â€
“Melting Point†is a compelling study of water in its varying states and forms. Spurred by global warming effects on the environment, Anne Veraldi utilizes her background in sculpture and painting to add dimension and depth to an otherwise ordinary subject. This series began when she starting photographing a glass of ice water that was sitting on her windowsill. She then began to add acrylic threads to the water causing gases to escape slowly from the water, forming into bubbles. These photographs record the ambient sky as well as the metamorphosis of ice melting into water. Depending on the time of day and atmospheric conditions, the color in the photographs reflect a variety of subtle hues, creating a new, temporary environment within the frame. Veraldi has exhibited throughout the United States. This is her first show at DNJ Gallery.
DNJ Gallery is located at 154 1/2 N. La Brea, Los Angeles, CA 90036, near the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Los Angeles and is in close proximity to one of the largest concentration of art galleries in Southern California. DNJ Gallery promotes contemporary photography by emerging and established artists to both local and international audiences. Since opening in Fall 2007 our artists and exhibitions have received considerable recognition from visitors, collectors, as well as local and national media such as The Los Angeles Times and Art Forum. We represent innovative and progressive photographers who push the edge in diverse genres. We exhibit works with strong conceptual foundations that comments on social, political and psychological issues of our times, to rigorous studies on the “poetics of objects†, whether man-made or natural. Our artists include Holly Andres, Nathan Baker, Eileen Cowin, Darryl Curran, Michael Eastman, Jona Frank, Richard Gilles, Jonathan Gitelson, Joe Goode, Gregori Maiofis, Maria Luisa Morando, Jane O’Neal, Laura Parker, Carlos & Jason Sanchez, Brian Sorg, Anne Veraldi, Dylan Vitone, and Patrick Wymore. To learn more about our gallery, please go to www.dnjgallery.net.
