"Night Lights" Featured on Robert Benchley Society Blog

Check out these great blog posts about DNJ's Night Lights exhibition!

THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 2010

Venice/Venezia at DNJ Gallery, Los Angeles
A message from Robert Benchley Society supporter and celebrated LA Noir photographer, Helen Garber--

Venice/Venezia closes at DNJ Gallery, 154 1/2 North La Brea this Saturday, May 1st at 5pm. The Gallery has done a great job of presenting my latest body of work and I hope that you can get down there to see it in person before then. And to those who missed my artist's talk, I am happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Best regards,
Helen

Great Reviews for: NIGHT LIGHTS: VENICE/VENEZIA. THIS WEEK'S RECOMMENDATIONS. . . .

Continuing through May 1, 2010
DNJ Gallery, 154 1/2 N. La Brea
Los Angeles, California
www.dnjgallery.net

Three perceptive photographers turn their faces away from the garish light of day to evoke the magic mystery of the night. Bill Sosin employs depth of field like a jazz musician whose mastery of basics allows his music to soar. He focuses on raindrops pelting his car's windshield, layering these beautifully articulated, sparkling gems over backgrounds of colorful soft focus splashes of light emanating from movie marquees, traffic signals and other barely identifiable sources.


Bill Sosin, Stop Lights, archival inkjet print, 2006-09, 16" x 20"

In contrast, Helen K. Garber purposefully keeps elements in her black and white archival digital diptychs in focus, encouraging careful analysis of details in her witty study of similarities and disparities between famed Venice, Italy and the product of Abbot Kinney's dreams, Venice, CA. Garber utilizes piazzas, canals, arches, and even a boat named "Fantasy" in her engaging, poetic series. Elements in a stark local church are positioned to echo those of a chapel in Italy, but Garber includes a car in the shot, precluding any possibility of confusion.


Helen K. Garber, Boats With a Full Moon, archival digital print on canvas, 2010, 13" x 30"

The suggestion of danger lurking in Garber's photos of narrow passageways is amplified in
Ginny Mangrum's depictions of light emanating from interiors of locations that are normally closed up at night. Mangrum enhances the voyeuristic quality of her work in "Shop," which includes two headless mannequins.


Ginny Mangrum, Dinning Room, archival lightjet print, 2010, 16" x 20"

- Diane Calder

Publications by Simone Kussatz
Dienstag, 16. März 2010
DNJ's exhibit "Night Lights"

Three American photographers currently exhibit their work at DNJ Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, Bill Sosin, Ginny Mangrum and Helen K. Garber. The exhibit "Night Lights" is a collection of night photography, made by using completely different approaches...

...While Sosin and Mangrum focused on one city at a time, Helen K. Garber put two cities together. Displayed as diptychs, she juxtaposed images of Venice, California next to images of Venice, Italy. As opposed to Sosin and Mangrum, Garber presents her black and white photographs on canvas, which gives them a painterly quality. Garber’s work -- inspired by an old photograph from 1922 showing her great aunt and uncle sitting in a gondola in the canal in the Italian Venice -- are not just beautiful presentations of two cities. They deal with issues of globalization and Garber’s shattered image of Venice in Italy. When Garber visited there for the first time in 2006, she was shocked by the throngs of tourists in crowded corridors. Hence she regards globalization critically, thinking it destroys rather than adds something to both cities. This reflects in Garber’s work, which shows both Venices with the daytime tourists gone and belonging again to their permanent residents.
Written by Simone Kussatz
Edited by Peter Frank

Night Lights at DNJ Gallery
by Carolyn Blais

Night—it can be a time of peaceful tranquility when all the world seems to be at rest; or it can be something more sinister—a time when nothing is as it seems. For many of us as children the darkness of the night presented a slew of frights. For me, a vivid imagination too often got the best of me as I saw a desk chair to be an angry lion or a bureau to be a looming monster once the lights turned off. Could it be the world transforms as day turns into night? Or are our minds just playing tricks on us? In any case, for whatever reason our perceptions of things seem to change at night—sometimes making the world more beautiful, other times more mysterious. A walk through the current exhibit at DNJ Gallery entitled “Night Lights” is what spurred these thoughts as the three artists on display present photographs of various scenes, all taken solely at night.

Having been sick for the opening of “Night Lights” on March 13, I head over to West Hollywood one week later on a Saturday afternoon, thankfully feeling much healthier. I climb the stairs to the second floor and enter a bright, clean space with lots of interesting photographs that immediately grab my attention......

Helen K. Garber is the third photographer whose work is currently on display at DNJ. Garber captures a most clever design in her work by taking photos of Venice, Italy and juxtaposing them with photos of the different yet sometimes similar Venice that is Venice, CA. I am touched by the artist’s inspiration: “an 8″ x 10″ photograph of [her] great aunt and uncle sitting in a gondola in the canal in front of the Doge Palace, marked Venice, Italy October 24, 1922.” Having looked at that photo as a child and then through her adult life, Garber finally got to see the real thing in her early 50’s. Anyone who has ever been to Venice, Italy can relate to Garber’s dismay upon realizing that the city’s charming canals and narrow passageway streets are often completely beleaguered by annoying tourists and filthy pigeons. While of course the beauty of the city still exists even under such circumstance, it took nightfall to allow Garber to more adequately document this beauty as most of the tourists had then returned to the comforts of their hotels or cruise ships. In this series of photographs there is, in my opinion, no need to deliberate as to whether the images are beautiful. The nighttime captured in both of these cities that share the same name is utterly breathtaking—whether it be of the canal verses the marina, or of sailboats verses gondolas, every picture made me smile with admiration.

“Night Lights” will be on display through May 1st and the exhibit is free to the public. Experience a little night magic through the works of these three very talented photographers whose work will not disappoint.

White Fireworks: Loving These Lately
londontoboston.blogspot.com

The DNJ Gallery in Los Angeles is showing Helen K. Garber's new series Venice / Venezia, and I'm smitten with her black and white photographs. So the theme is a little obvious -- Venice Beach, CA and Venice, Italy. The silence in these night shots is haunting.

Helen K. Garber Artist Talk + Miracle Mile Art Walk

Check out some photos of Helen and guests taken during the April Miracle Mile Art Walk courtesy of photographer Chris Denson.

"The Nocturnes": Review of "Night Lights" on Fine Arts L.A.com

The Nocturnes
Thursday, April 15th, 2010


What is it about cities in the night-time? Without fail, they seem to possess a kind of magical, haunting quality—the scattered matrices of illuminated office windows, the splash of light from a street-lamp upon a deserted intersection, the blurs of red and white night-traffic, the sharp shapes of buildings making shadows of moonlight on an empty sidewalk.

I suppose one could try to explain this beauty rationally; talk about how urban environments are designed for large masses of people, and how the nightly absence of such populations is bound to create a sense of surrealism. Or maybe how the necessity for artificial light in a city-setting reminds gazers of civilization’s simultaneous dominance and fragility. But I prefer to just look, and so do photographers Helen K. Garber, Ginny Mangrum, and Bill Sosin.

In their combined exhibition, entitled “Night Lights,” which is on view at the DNJ Gallery right by the intersection of Beverly and La Brea until May 1st, they have collectively opened their F-stops wide enough to capture the mysteries of life during night-time. The images range from abstract studies of light and shadow, to more relatable scenes of eerie desertion, where most people wouldn’t dare walk without an added quickness to their step.

Helen K. Garber, who is a member of the San Fransisco-based Nocturnes—a group of photographers dedicated to taking pictures at night—will be giving a talk at the gallery this Friday, April 17th at 5:00 PM as a part of the Miracle Mile Art Walk. Her photographs—mostly black-and-white urban landscapes—have been published in the Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, and LA Weekly. She has exhibited all over the country, and been the recipient of numerous photography awards. So come out to hear what she has to say, browse the myriad images of night and light, then take a stroll around the rest of the art walk—if for no other reason than to enjoy the beauty of sunny Los Angeles when there is no sun.

“Night Lights” features photographs by Helen K. Garber, Ginny Mangrum, and Bill Sosin. The exhibition runs until May 1st at the DNJ Galley located at 154 1/2 La Brea Ave. Helen K. Garber will be speaking on Friday April 17th at 5:00 PM. For more information, call (323) 931-1311 or visit www.dnjgallery.net.

"Night Lights" Featured in Black & White Magazine

DNJ's Night Lights exhibition is featured in Black & White Magazine's April issue! This show is runing now through May 1, 2010 so be sure to stop by for a visit before it goes! :-)

ArtScene 'Continuing & Recommended' Exhibition!

Continuing & Recommended
April 2010

"Night Lights" @ DNJ Gallery
March 15, 2010 – May 1, 2010

By Diane Calder

Three perceptive photographers turn their faces away from the garish light of day to evoke the magic mystery of the night. Bill Sosin employs depth of field like a jazz musician whose mastery of basics allows his music to soar. He focuses on raindrops pelting his car’s windshield, layering these beautifully articulated, sparkling gems over backgrounds of colorful soft focus splashes of light emanating from movie marquees, traffic signals and other barely identifiable sources. In contrast, Helen K. Garber purposefully keeps elements in her black and white archival digital diptychs in focus, encouraging careful analysis of details in her witty study of similarities and disparities between famed Venice, Italy and the product of Abbot Kinney’s dreams, Venice, CA. Garber utilizes piazzas, canals, arches, and even a boat named “Fantasy” in her engaging, poetic series. Elements in a stark local church are positioned to echo those of a chapel in Italy, but Garber includes a car in the shot, precluding any possibility of confusion. The suggestion of danger lurking in Garber’s photos of narrow passageways is amplified in Ginny Mangrum’s depictions of light emanating from interiors of locations that are normally closed up at night. Mangrum enhances the voyeuristic quality of her work in “Shop,” which includes two headless mannequins. (DNJ Gallery, Miracle Mile)

Helen K. Garber Directs GROUPSC 2009

DNJ Gallery artist, Helen K. Garber, is directing GROUPSC 2009! This is sure to be an amazing collaboration of artists headed by one of the best, so be sure to check out this very special look at Southern California and don't forget to stop by DNJ to see Helen's Venice/Venezia exhibition on view now through May 1, 2010!



Santa Monica – GROUPSC 2009, a consortium of fifty regional documentary artist-photographers, directed by Helen K. Garber, will showcase An Intimate View of Southern California at MOPLA’s opening reception at Bergamot Station as a featured installation. The exhibit will then travel to a downtown site, hosted by L.A. Center for Digital Art for the April 8 Downtown Art Walk. This is the third in a series of site-specific pop-up digital installations designed in collaboration with award –winning architectural design firm MINARC/Gallery SKART who will host an exhibition of GroupSC 2009 Artist Works on Paper at their Bergamot adjacent Gallery SKART through May.

Each of GROUPSC’s photographers has embedded their signature style into the documentation of the region’s unique neighborhoods where they reside, work or play, resulting in a gestalt of fifty, up-to-the-minute perspectives tinged with current affairs. Central to this year’s theme is a defunct trailer rescued and reclaimed by Project Director Garber, who, with the expert repair skills of Banning Discount RV of Beaumont, CA and Digital Director Chris Quilisch; Artist/Designer Duce; and the Minarc team, has recycled salvage parts from within the trailer and trailer yard, transforming it from a decaying piece of trash, into a mobile digital projection vehicle for GROUPSC2009’s forthcoming photo tours.

Garber is committed to “uniting the energy field” of LA and environs’ creative community by engaging local artists who are struggling to survive in tandem with the community-at-large. According to Nancy Louise Jones, Project Editor, Garber has brought talent together for a different type of showcase; one that makes a significant statement about our society, and about how we communicate with each other, to surmount the challenges in our personal careers as photo professionals. Jones: “What many people will never see is that Helen has managed through sheer persistence, love of life, love of art, caring for her peers and impeccable timing to coordinate an amazing group of professional and amateur photographers who would normally be disengaged from each other. She is making a statement with the power and strength of creative numbers.”

By taking the show on the road, Garber believes that geographically isolated neighborhoods and insular ethnic enclaves will be exposed to the breadth of our humanity with all of its beauty, variety and recessionary pain depicted.

Grown from last year’s GroupLA 2008, the expanded circumscribed territory is bounded by Santa Ynez/Northwest, San Diego/Southwest, Anza Borrego/Southeast, and Apple Valley/Northeast. Jones opines that “there is a trend in photography now to romanticize the landscape,” but “we live in a large city where there is a lot of loneliness and this year there is an abundance of shots void of humans, but you can still feel presence.” In portraying that loneliness, the images also convey “a sense of trying to connect to survive; when we’re looking through the trash for clothing or food, this project makes the statement, ‘you are not alone’.”

In the process of reviewing what has become a contemporary image archive, Jones has reveled in the artistic rendering that illuminates Redlands’ old Americana; sugarcoats the aftermath of the Santa Barbara fires; and turns an Eastside mired in ugly poverty into surreal beauty, in spite of “an undercurrent of people…out of touch with themselves because they are just trying to find food for their next meal…and boredom, sheer boredom…people walking through life with no more curiosity…” But the curiosity of the artists includes witnessing life through a hotel peephole; trying to comprehend a pathology that banishes sofas to street corners; and questioning why what was at one time dubbed trailer trash has become the new middle-class, living from parking space to parking space. All the while, Eagle Rock churches provide free sermons to us on surviving the economy vis-à-vis signage on their facades and front lawns.

In editing the show’ narrative into digestible viewing nuggets, Jones selections include pictures that reveal last year’s ongoing desolation along the rural and urban landscape: amid the eclectic blend of wealth and poverty from Santa Monica to Marina del Rey; the desert’s hot, dried-out establishments under brilliant blue skies animated by Joshua Tree’s military outpost populated with “short stud-cuts,” Oxnard day-laborers, the underworld of South-central, foragers for food around the Midnight Mission, and the grit of alleyways in Boyle Heights.

But hope is not lost, evidenced by renewable desert and sea flora and fauna, life goes on for Isla Vista hippies, multi-tasking Burbank-to-Brentwood freeway commuters, the manicured lawns in suburbs of Lakewood, the Laguna Woods retirement community, and the mid-century architecture of Palm Springs. The celebratory mood moves from the daily zaniness that transits on and off Santa Monica’s pier and crowded beaches, toward gorgeous neon and gay life in West Hollywood, to the perennial Chinatown parade, and further east to Idyllwild’s crafty woods.

According to Rex Bruce, Director of LACDA, “This is an exhibit that has been needing to happen and is finally being realized. To put cogent documentation of the L.A. ‘City State’ on wheels and readied to make the great American road trip makes sense for a place that has more cars than people. Each area is represented by photographer artists that really know the experience there, so the flavor of the differing regions are captured in their stories told in an unusual and compelling manner for those who view the installation.”

Garber likens the mobile concept to a travelogue that travels. “People used to go on adventures and bring back the photos… We are reversing the experience…taking the photos on the adventure…taking our home on the journey.”

Duce, graffiti writer who partnered with Helen K. Garber on A Night View Collaboration [2007-2010], will again participate by using the trailer as a surface to create a narrative of his relationship to Southern California.

GroupSC 2009, An Intimate View of Southern California

Suzy Poling Interview on Sioux Wire

Check out this amazing interview with DNJ's newest artist Suzy Poling! She will be showing at DNJ Gallery in May so be sure to put it on your calendar!



To me, Suzy Poling's photographic work is a refreshing blend of natural and man-made textures with obtuse narratives that hint at things both physically beyond the frame as well as chronologically outside the instant the image portrays. While there is a definite consistency in her work, it's hard to grasp with elements of the absurd, horrifying, and mysterious bundled in intriguing, sublime parcels.

I am very grateful for Suzy's participation and hope some of you might find the same kind of insight and inspiration that I have from her work. -Sioux

Working with Julia Solis on Fantastic Degradation and Wonderland of Decay/Imaginary Companions, how do you approach the collaborative effort and would you say your work is different when working in conjunction with another artist? And what have you learned while working with Julia?
In 2005, I found a picture of Julia’s in a magazine and then I looked up her site and was blown away. There was something about the way that she approached these places, namely hospitals, that was like an emotional preservation of some sort. I could see that she was looking a lot further into these rooms and hallways than most people. I was fascinated by her and noticed that she was using similar language about these kinds of places that I was using. I thought who is this person? So I emailed her out of the blue and we met once and it was total trust and we knew should work together.

"The purpose has been to channel energies and to play with remaining artifacts and forces in the space."

I had previously lived in an old theatre that I was really into and I had been seeking out abandoned amusement parks for a few years, she had responded to these photographs of mine. It made sense or seemed really organic that we would synch up and join forces or alliances to find many interesting things. I also had this project called Wonderland of Decay where the premise was about growth in decay and I had these mischievous characters covered in greens moving around and blending into this abandoned house. The project was absurd and kind of eerie.



Then Julia and I starting taking trips to more parks and hospitals and it was immediate magic. I brought in some costumes and material that fit the environments and it instantly felt like something was happening within our experiments as we moved around with the materials. The purpose has been to channel energies and to play with remaining artifacts and forces in the space. This is a shared experience has really only begun. The costumes and materials are only a bridge. Collaborating closely with someone who tunes into the same subtle vibrations of a place has been incredibly liberating and things like ego and control do not have any place.

Julia is also doing many things and has been organizing events and working on projects in hospitals for a while. Our collaborative work is called Fantastic Degradation and we have a site (darkpassage.com) and are finding ways to work on our stuff together as she is all the way in Brooklyn. It has felt like a fairly psychic relationship.

In regards to Transmutation Headquarters, you have said “Artefacts are activated to create scenarios inspired by science fiction film and found poltergeist photographs”. Would you explain how the project developed? And what science fiction films inspired this work and what do you mean by “found poltergeist photographs”? And what attracted you to these?
This project is such an unusual one to me. Part of it is about alienation and discomfort and then the other part is my attempt to make scenes like Doctor Who. These photographs are inspired by Science Fiction movies by way of being these clunky and fairly awkward sets. The work was made in Michigan which is where I am from. The abandoned doctor’s office is this place where upon entrance it feels the exact same as always, it smells like old medicine and seems a bit dissonant.



As far the poltergeist photographs, I once saw this book of occurrences and there was one image where a pile of chairs was so deliberately placed against a wall as if someone wanted to climb the pile to the ceiling, it looked so violent and demonstrative. But it was all just happenstance. I was inspired by that type of interference with a place.

Wonderland of Decay and Imaginary Companions were created in five different mental institutions. Aside from the physical setting itself, what impact did the history of these places have on your work?
Well I don’t really indulge in the hard evidence of the hospitals as far as specifics of who the occupants were. My relationship with these places is much more surreal. I want to know how violent a place is but that is usually very clear as soon as we walk in the door. I am there to see how light moves in the space and through dark areas. I am there for the sounds and how the air moves through a place. I am looking at bits of evidence that could have represented attempts at providing happiness and escape in places that can feel so dark and full of pain. Sometimes a hallway appears as one long continuous composition with a dark end and beaming light with layers of texture in between like a cave. My interest lies in how a place can succumb to nature and how falling apart is an innate design. I guess you could say it’s a personal experience.....



"I am currently more interested in sculpture than most photographic work."

You also create costumes. Would you tell us about the importance of the costumes on your work? And is their design/sculpture stemmed from other non-photographic work you’ve done as an artist and how did this develop?
I am just using the costumes as a way to blend a figure into a space. It’s all about assimilation, mimicking and trying to combine textures of humans to textures of a deteriorated space. I am really into the Vienna Actionists and their Material Action Manifestos. It’s about how all materials are the same. I plan to do more, more, more. I am currently more interested in sculpture than most photographic work.

Practically speaking, what have been the challenges of the environments in which you work and in what way did you overcome them? And how do you find and choose your locations?
Tons of research, driving, good navigation, clues from others and a good solid hunch. Well some of my work has entailed me to ask people nicely to get into a place or much of it is traveling and walking long distances. I usually have to overcome fatigue and some fear.



"I think of color as a potential psychological trigger in a photograph or an environment."

A lot of your collected works are created over long periods of time and at disparate locations. Is this an important aspect of these pieces? What do you feel the width of time/space adds to your work?
There has been this long period of time that expands a project. It’s usually due to rarity. I think it allows me to be patient and to think of these places as everlasting, even if they are going away fast. I have dreams about finding old amusement parks with giant wheels and tunnels that are decrepit with brightly colored spirals painted everywhere with rusted rides laying tilted in the middle of some interesting woods. For a while I had dreams about a place almost every night with kind of like the film Carnival of Souls.



Would you tell us a little about your approach to colour and its importance to your photographs?
I think of color as a potential psychological trigger in a photograph or an environment. You are going to have a reaction if you walk down a bright pink hall vs. a blue one. In the movie Three Women with Shelly Duval and Sissy Spacek, I appreciate how obsessed Shelly Duval’s character was with the color yellow. Everything was yellow in her life. Seeing so much yellow kind of set the emotional tone of the film. Besides, a room with everything colored yellow can be kind of disturbing.

Are there any other art forms which interest you outside of photography(and costume design) that you practice? Or alternatively, is there a discipline that you would like to learn?
Yes. I am very much into experimental sounds and noise music. I have a project called Pod Blotz that I started in 2001. There has been a bunch of members. Mainly one person named Bobby. I would say that many of the places I have gone to inspire the music or vice versa. It’s all relative.



What non-photographic artists do you admire and/or inspire you?
As far as whom as I admire, well, where do I start? The Dadaist, Russian Avante Garde, the Banana Splits, the Actionist, Yoko Ono, weird movies, Fluxus. As far as photographic work, Clarence John Laughlin played a huge roll in my work. His photographs of the plantation mansion in the 40's in New Orleans are completely eerie. He was said to be the Charles Baudelaire of photography. I am into Man Ray and Jeff Wall too.

What are the key events in the development of you as a photographer? And what first attracted you to the medium?
Well the reason I am attracted to photography because it is “real” and you can photograph things that look so potentially strange. The believability factor can be pushed in interesting ways. And I see photography as a great way to study something. Whether it is an experience, texture, light, etc.




Would you tell us about your work for the Snap program in Chicago and what you learned while working on the project?
This project was with city kids in Chicago where we put photography and words in a publication. I worked with all younger people my age and we all ran our own programs. It was all very raw, organic, antonymous and political. I like teaching and I also had worked with homeless teens. One of my students was dealing with schizophrenia and that was really intense and meaningful to me to try to communicate. I will be working with incarcerated youth this fall in San Francisco as well as potentially doing medical photography of the human eye with Ophthalmologists.



"The beached whale was by far the most psychedelic textured object that I have ever laid eyes on."

What do you think of the tendency to categorise art with labels like “high brow”, “low brow”, “street art”, or “outsider art”? And in general, are labels and gradations of art in any way useful?
I don’t really think about art or creativity in this way. I mean an ant farm or beehive is high art. I don’t believe in conformity, so whatever you can do to remain pure you should do. Don’t get me wrong, it is important to navigate and I believe in independence and free agents if you will. I just don’t get hung upon labels or restrictions.

What are your aspirations for the future and what are you working on now? When can we expect to see more work from Nature Mutation?
More sewing, more trips, music and video. I have a solo show this month in June at Zg Gallery in Chicago. And Julia Solis and I are working on compiling work for Fantastic Degradation this summer. I will definitely be working more on Nature Mutation. That started with finding toxic oddities and with making swampy costumes with Loach Fillet who was a part of Pod Blotz. We did a book together and I have been inspired by his textured drawings of nature and configurations.

I am planning to get to Chernobyl and to continue exploring the coastline in California. That is where I found the whale. The beached whale was by far the most psychedelic textured object that I have ever laid eyes on. Nature Mutation is about nature assimilation as well as metaphorical ramblings about finding things. I also have a slime movie coming out soon with Carlos Gonzales. It’s all about mysteries of slime and scum. It’s taking my obsession with the color green a bit too far.



Thank you, Suzy. I can not wait to see what you do next.

Ginny Mangrum Featured on Diablo Valley College News

Virginia (Ginny) Mangrum, a part-time photo instructor in the art department at Diablo Valley College, is one of three featured artists at an exhibit opening March 15 at the DNJ Gallery in Los Angeles.

The exhibit, Night Lights, also features Helen K. Garber and Bill Sosin, and runs through May 1, with an artist reception scheduled for March 13. Mangrum’s body of work in the exhibit is titled “Night Moves II.”

A native of Redlands, CA, Mangrum received her bachelor of fine arts degree in photography from the California College of the Arts in Oakland and her master of fine arts in studio art from Mills College, Oakland. She has also studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and Summer Interdisciplinary Studies in Florence/Pienza, Italy. In addition to teaching at DVC, Mangrum works as an artist in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“Night Moves II is a continuing photographic examination of private places that uses voyeuristic observations at night to stress tension,” Mangrum said of her exhibit. “It isolates the anticipation associated with someone’s unpredictable arrival lying in wait.

“Darkness at its peak of the night is a place where many things can hide. Watching from within the dark shadows without being noticed is an activity that challenges all our society’s sensibilities and respect for another person’s privacy.”

Mangrum said her two Night Moves series of photographs grew out of several years of photographing urban spaces void of human activity, signage, or identification of purpose.

“I have always been interested in the psychological relationship that exists between the human’s participation and space inhabited previously in the public and currently in the private,” she said. “With each piece of work I do, I find there is more to consider while pushing the idea forward beyond the lens, medium and presentation. I think it will never be done.”

Mangrum’s first Night Moves exhibit was exhibited along side Bill Owen’s work at the same gallery in 2007. Her work is currently exhibited on the Online Gallery of California College of the Arts in Oakland. She has also exhibited her work at the Marin MOCA in Novato, CA; Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco; and Rayko Photography Center in San Francisco. Other select work has been exhibited at UCSF Women’s Health Center, San Francisco, CA; Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis, MD; Point 360 in San Francisco; and Palazzo Piccolomini Gallery in Pienza, Italy, among others.

Night Lights Exhibition Featured in the Daily Trojan!

DNJ Gallery is excited to announce our inclusion in the Daily Trojan Weekend Picks for April!



Saturday, April 3
Night Lights
6 p.m. > DNJ Gallery > FREE

In this one-of-a-kind exhibit, three photographers take on the complex challenge of taking pictures during the night. In the absence of California sunshine, the pictures reveal the isolating yet illuminating city environment of Los Angeles.

By: Tanvi Mirani and Becca Lett