On November 2, FLATFILEgalleries will open FLORA/FAUNA, an exhibition of photography and sculpture by gallery artists that draws its inspiration from plant and animal life. The opening reception will be from 5-9 on November 2nd, and FLORA/FAUNA, featuring sculpture by Jozef Sumichrast, and photography by Gail Kaplan, Barbara Levy Kipper, Marco Ambrosi, and Beth Moon, will run through December 22.  In Project Room 2, FLATFILE will present a special installation, CANOPY, by Natalia Ivancevich.

Jozef Sumichrast has shown his sculpture, created in various mediums across the US and in Cyprus, Paris, and Japan.  His unique view of the transition between two dimensional and three dimensional informs his work, visually explaining the shift, and building both dimensions into the work, as well as the “fourth Dimension”, which he calls “space geometry”.  These are the motions and functions that lay outside three-dimensional space.  In this exhibition, Sumichrast shows a variety of the horses, many in bronze, which he has become known for.  Sumichrast has been a gallery artist for three years.

www.jozef.com


Gail Kaplan, who began as a sculptor, looks through her camera lens with a sculptor’s eye, in this show, framing details of carriage horses that define the genre with tenderness and delicacy.  The images, many of which appear to be landscapes, invite the viewer to de-code them; to recognize horse body parts in the ambiguous images.  Kaplan has shown around the US, and has been a member of the FLATFILE stable since 2003.  This is her fourth show with the gallery.

www.gailkaplan.com


Barbara Levy Kipper, whose images of Africa, India and China defined those cultures within single photographs in FLATFILE’s recent TWO WOMEN/WIDE WORLD, is back, with newly created images of the flora and fauna of Africa from a trip in August.  Stressing the details, as always, she draws us into a game of Where’s Waldo, asking us to decipher which animal the eyes she is enthralled with belong to.  Strange and wonderful indigenous plants intermingle with the animals, leading us on an intriguing safari without leaving the gallery. This is Barbara’s second FLATFILE show.

www.blkipper.com


Marco Ambrosi, who lives and works in Verona, Italy, presents here for the first time in the US, his Bios series, digitized diptychs of plants and flowers that appear so alien as to have blossomed in another dimension.  Indescribable colors and forms wind across the paper in bursts of song.  Ambrosi, whose work has been widely shown in Europe, has been with FLATFILEgalleries for just over two years.

www.marcoambrosi.it


Beth Moon, the California-based photographer, who has exhibited across the US and in Europe, will show her newest body of work in FLORA/FAUNA, the series entitled Thy Kingdom Come.  Moon, a former gallery artist who is a guest in this show, says of the work,: “The title, in this case refers to the animal kingdom, where animals in an older world move, gifted with senses we have lost, living by voices we do not hear. Using a metaphoric language these images examine the relationship between man, animal and earth.

www.bethmoon.com


Natalia Ivancevich, who was discovered by FLATFILE at the SAIC Undergraduate Show two years ago, makes her solo debut here with White Forest.  Ivancevich’s, etchings appeared in BLACK/WHITE earlier this year at FLATFILE.  Canopy is a site specific fantasy in white, a dream, an imaginary place that only Ivancevich is capable of creating. Painstakingly cut paper trees, lit from within, will transform Project Room 2 into another world.

www.nataliaivancevich.com