Wednesday, November 25, 2009

DNJ Gallery Holiday Editions Now Available

DNJ Gallery is pleased to present Holiday Miniature Editions - a special series of limited edition, photo-based works by eleven gallery artists. The works vary in size and edition, and range in price from $40- $100. A limited number of full-set editions are available for $500. Created to entice your inner art collector and encourage art-giving this holiday season, the miniatures provide an affordable way to build a contemporary photography collection. DNJ Miniatures are available for purchase individually or as a full set. Please contact the gallery for further information. office@dnjgallery.net

Click the Holiday Miniature link above or the artists links below to scroll through all available images.

Miniature works are available by:

Maria Luisa Morando, Annie Seaton, Jane O'Neal, Jona Frank, Richard Gilles, Darryl Curran, Laura Parker, Bernadette DiPietro, Anne Veraldi, Patrick Wymore and Dylan Vitone

Morando_AQUA-IIIa_5x5
Maria Luisa Morando

Seaton_8x8
Annie Seaton

Evergreen Elm
Jane O'Neal
See Environmental Memory: Part I - Home Grown
series for all available miniatures by Jane


Frank_jordan_rodeo_mt_8x10
Jona Frank

Gilles_15012_w_avenue_D_3.5x8.5_2009
Richard Gilles

Curran_hammer_prints
Darryl Curran
Images available in three colors shown

Parker_dried-lizard-back-black_7x7_or_10x10
Laura Parker

Bernadette_kansas_city_
Bernadette DiPietro
Call gallery for all available
miniaures by Bernadette


Veraldi_Row_Boat_Cprint_4x5
Anne Veraldi

pwymore_miniature11
Patrick Wymore

Vitone_Graffiti_Writers
Dylan Vitone

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Maria Luisa Morando Featured on PIX Feed LA

DNJ Gallery artist, Maria Luisa Morando and her exhibition titled Aqua & White, are spotlighted on PIX Feed LA blog! This exhibition is running now through January 16, 2010, so be sure to stop by for a visit.

"... By overexposing the camera, my world becomes clutter free, enabling the viewer to experience the moment and therefore really see it, feel it and connect with it. Like memories, these images have the seemingly counter-intuitive qualities of being highly defined, yet at the same time, being impossible to get close to, no matter how much the viewer tries.

By removing the clutter, the viewer is freed up to respond to the work almost as if they can hear the image. Without the surplus detail, the other senses can come into play, making it easier to hear the waves, feel the heat of the sunlight and taste the salt air. The lack of clutter gives tranquility about the work. "


AQUA I
Maria Luisa Morando, Aqua I, digital c-print, 2009, 48 x 48 inches

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Maria Luisa Morando Featured on Lenscratch

Check out this awesome Lenscratch blog about Maria Luisa's Aqua & White exhibition here at DNJ Gallery!

I remember when I first came across Maria Luisa Morando's exquisite work. It was in 2008 at Photo LA, in the photoeye Gallery booth. Her large, all white prints were framed in white and a contrast to the riot of imagery that surrounded it. The images were quiet, bleached out, as if looking at a dream, and I was completely transfixed. Whatever shapes or colors were able to emerge from the whiteness were like jewelry, tiny slivers of turquoise and rose, with washes of pale aqua and butter so faint that you had to work hard to see them. Those images stayed with me.

Several months later I invited Maria Luisa to speak in one of my classes, and she was anything but bleached out. Maria Luisa is a lively, beautiful British photographer, full of intention and intelligence. She spoke of how The White Series came out of the horror of 911 and as a reaction to these traumatic events, she wanted simplicity in her life. Now living in Los Angeles, Maria Luisa uses the coastline to find the the visual restraint and clarity that suits her vision.

Her new addition to this work, The Aqua Series, will be shown along side The White Series at an exhibition at the DNJ Gallery in Los Angeles. The show opens tonight and runs through January 16th.

Our lives are defined by moments.

Our memories are a series of moments that capture our lives and frame the emotions that surround them. The emotions are fluid, but the moments are both singular and eternal.

These timeless photographs capture a series of moments and allow the viewer to explore the emotions that ebb and flow with them. Like memories, these images have the seemingly counter-intuitive qualities of being highly defined, yet at the same time, being impossible to get close to, no matter how much the viewer tries.


Maria Luisa Morando, AQUA IV, 2009
Maria Luisa Morando, Aqua VI, 48" x 48," digital c-print, 2009

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Please be sure to stop by DNJ Gallery to see Aqua & White by Maria Luisa Morando and Going Home: Toronto by Annie Seaton. The show will run through January 16, 2010.

View photos from the opening below:

Miracle Mile Art Walk and Artist Talk

Be sure to join us for this month's MM Art Walk hosted by DNJ Gallery this Saturday, November 21, 2009 from 4 - 7 pm! Along with refreshments, both Maria Luisa Morando and Annie Seaton will be giving artist talks at 4:30 pm, so please be sure to stop by for some fun, food, and art!

Maria Luisa Morando, AQUA V, 2009
Maria Luisa Morando, Aqua V, digital c-print, 2009

Harbord_St_12x12
Annie Seaton, Harbord St., c-print with acrylic inks, 2009

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Maria Luisa Morando Featured in the November Issue of ArtScene

DNJ Gallery artist, Maria Luisa Morando, is a featured artist in this month's ArtScene.

This exhibition runs from November 14, 2009 - January 16, 2010 so please stop by the gallery for a visit!

Maria Luisa Morando, AQUA V, 2009
Maria Luisa Morando, Aqua V, 2009


by Michael Buitrón

In theater design, it is often the barest suggestion of an image that suggests a particular time and place. A few bricks sketched on a dark wall, and the stage is transfigured into a dark and foreboding alley. In a similar way, Maria Luisa Morando’s photographs are so washed in light that only the barest traces are left to represent landscapes where sand and water interplay to form the shore. From her early years in theater and costume design, Morando brings an eye that is skilled in developing the essential, leaving details to be fleshed out in the mind of the viewer.

“Aqua and White” is a series of large-scale prints that, installed in the long and narrow exhibition space transform the room into an installation, beckoning the viewer to step into the image. With her cool gelato colors and sunlight reflected off the sand and celadon waves, she evokes fond memories of summer days. Because of the lack of sharp detail, it becomes impossible to explore the images for their specificity, and instead they open up and play to any seaside memory the viewer cares to pour into them. In “Camera Lucida” Roland Barthes referred to photographic details that create an intense, personal response, as the punctum. For images that are essentially punctum-free, Morando moves out of the way, allowing the viewer to find their own point of entry into the briny blur.

Having grown up in a small village in Great Britain that was, “as far from the sea as one could possibly get,” Morando’s childhood holidays created her first memories of the seaside as a place of retreat and contemplation. In the anxious and stressful days after September 11th she journeyed to the French coast at Biarritz, where she found both solace and her photographic muse in the shoreline. Like land and water’s eternal compromise that interplay and define the shore, these early works were titled with words from the Lord’s Prayer translated into Arabic, and the geography of the coast became a hopeful metaphor for the peaceful potential of East meeting West.

In the years since then, Morando’s seascapes have expanded the opportunity for a multitude of associations. By draining her photographs of color, the artist has allowed room for the viewer to fill her work with their own associations. For “Aqua & White” her point-of-view completely removes the horizon, offering only sand and sea, punctuated by the occasional blurry cipher that stands for a beachgoer or child at play. The square picture plane, like a Tibetan Mandala, offers the viewer a point of focus and contemplation.

Maria Luisa Morando and Annie Seaton Artist Reception

DNJ Gallery is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition “Aqua & White” featuring the photographs of Maria Luisa Morando. Gallery II presents “Going Home: Toronto” displaying unique acrylic and photographic works by Annie Seaton.

The artist reception will be held on Saturday November 14, 2009 from 6 - 8pm, and the exhibitions will run through January 16, 2010.


Maria Luisa Morando, AQUA IV, 2009
Maria Luisa Morando, Aqua IV,
2009, 12 x 12 inches

Annie Seaton, Island Ferry with  Two Bouys, 2009
Annie Seaton, Island Ferry with Two Bouys,
2009, 36 x 24 inches