Special Presentation--FREE
Adventures in Mongolia, by Kerik Kouklis
Talk, Slide Show and Documentary Film Screening

Wed. March 27 at 6:30 p.m., Viewpoint Photographic Art Center

Join exhibiting photographer, fledgling film maker and Viewpoint Board President Kerik Kouklis for a night celebrating Mongolia. Kerik will share stories and images from his expeditions. He will also screen a 30-minute documentary he produced in 2017, “Mongolia in Winter”.

THE EXHIBIT: For as long as he can remember, Kerik Kouklis has liked to make stuff. He discovered early on that he really like to make photographs. Taking pictures and making prints has been part of Kerik’s life ever since his dad set up a basement darkroom for him when he was twelve. Kerik would spend hours experimenting (and he says mostly failing) to make something interesting. But every once in a while, something good would result, leading him to continue my pursuit of the next good picture, the next good print.  Kerik has never been in the “image is everything” camp of photography. It’s important to him that the image takes the form of a physical object – something that can be touched, or held, or maybe even hung on a wall.

Kerik states that his job is to deliver the message, the mood, the thought, the emotion. The image is the starting place, and printmaking is the language. He makes all his prints in his darkroom, using hands-on processes — wet plate collodion, platinum/palladium and gum bichromate. These experience-based processes allow him to shape the way an image is interpreted – and they bring him the satisfaction of creating something with his own hands. To Kerik, that physical connection between maker and object confers value on both.