Art Exhibition – Other Worldly: Henthorne & Akiko Kotani

Henthorne rarely includes humans in his epic-exposure landscape fotos, but the fishermen of Sri Lanka play a fundamental role at this intersection of ocean and earth. They also present a special photographic challenge. Perched on pogo stick-like stilts just above the rolling surf, since there’s no way to keep them perfectly still while the shutter remains open. In the resulting images, they partially dissolve into the scene, a blur. “The concept of their appearing blurry holds some significance in the final images. It’s an homage to humanity. To mortality. To change,” explains the artist.

“This newly released series of black and white landscape photographs are the epitome of minimalist aesthetic,” says curator Robin Perry Dana. “Henthorne’s dreamlike compositions present water and sky as barely discernible gradients of soft gray penetrated by vertical black lines that function as both tool and architecture hovering in space.”

Henthorne’s evocative fotographic work stems from eliminating variables of light direction, tide and composition to then fine tune his approach once on location. Nature and complexities of the weather become the arbiters of success versus failure. Successful imagery comes not from serendipity, but from research long before the travel to a distant location.

His waterscapes are created using epic exposures that yield the minimalistic high-contrast works of art that have become his signature style. His process captures cumulative time and the output offers the viewer an experience that the human eye is unable to capture on its own — an alternate perspective on reality.

Originally from the Midwest, Henthorne has been based in Florida since 1994. For the past 20 years, his work has taken him around the world. Every year he spends many months abroad creating iconic images that ultimately become part of collections featured in finely crafted publications. His limited-edition photographs are included in public and private art collections all over the world.

The Sri Lanka Collection is featured in the newly released EXPLORE, Henthorne’s fourth fine art photography publication to date. The exhibition at Leslie Curran Gallery will debut these powerful photographs as well as this extraordinary book, hot off the presses from Italy!

MORE ABOUT AKIKO KOTANI:

Much of the work in this exhibition uses the self-derived technique of stitching dots onto paper. This way of working started during the artist’s sojourn in Istanbul, Turkey. Not having access to the material and tools she was accustomed to using back home, the artist started to stitch paper she brought with her on the journey. After spending 2 years living in Istanbul, Akiko Kotani returned to the US inspired by the memory of the lingering enchantment of the Bosphorus Strait. Upon returning to her studio, Kotani continued to utilize this technique to produce works from the memories she had stored while living abroad.

Views of the Bosphorus is a series of works on paper, stitched with bamboo threads. The waterway is presented as negative space with the surrounding cities indicated by rendered dots onto paper. “These works were first conceived in Istanbul, gestated during my return to America, and realized in my studio, reflecting an internal and external journey that continues to this day,” the artist describes as her working process that has stretched over many years.

The same technique was employed in a work titled Roll, which issued from fascination with the simple vertical unspooling of the same kind of paper. The work gently winds forward so as to display the ends that peek through from the underside.

Along the Douro River, uses the same technique in a more diminutive scale and arises from a recent trip to Portugal. Kotani explains, “I am still producing works in this vein, stitched works on paper, but currently with the confidence of hindsight that creative memories may remain dormant for a spell before reappearing forcefully once again.”

Akiko Kotani born in Waipahu, Hawaii received her BFA in painting from the University of Hawaii and her MFA in textiles from the Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, PA. Now residing in Gulfport, FL she spent her former years as Professor Emerita of Art at Slippery Rock University, PA and two years at Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey. Her work is in the permanent collections of several private and public museums including the Cleveland Museum of Art, OH and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Kotani’s exhibit is partially funded by the 2018 Individual Artist Grant from the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance, FL.