Past Exhibits

The entry period for this very special exhibit is May 1 through July 29, 2018. The Exhibit will run from Sept. 4 through Oct. 6, 2018.

The Gladding, McBean & Co. factory, in the Placer County town of Lincoln, has operated continuously since 1875. Starting as a clay pipe manufacturer, “the pottery” soon expanded its product line and by the end of the 19th century was producing the architectural terra cotta that continues to ornament buildings in major cities across the U.S. and beyond. From 1987 to 2011, Gladding, McBean was the site of Feats of Clay, an annual ceramics exhibition that introduced thousands of visitors to the factory. Between 1996 and 2011, in workshops organized by Gene Kennedy, nearly 300 photographers explored, documented, and interpreted Gladding, McBean, a working factory as well as an icon of California’s industrial heritage. This juried exhibit celebrates that extraordinary opportunity and the photographic legacy it has given us.

Roughly 40% of US households have a gun and there are enough guns – approximately 300 million – to arm nearly every man, woman, and child in the country.

At the core of The Void series is a desire to consider these facts and to create a set of images that speaks to their implications. Each of the images is created from individual bullet holes. While shooting is fundamentally a destructive act, by bringing these holes into the darkroom, enlarging them and then processing and printing the results, Garrett Hansen is able to balance this destruction with creation. The viewer is presented with images that speak to the sublime – they are both attractive and terrifying at the same time. In many ways this reflects our own opinions of guns in America, a country where the debate between rights and controls continues to rage. The Silhouette series engages the broader culture of guns in America. Every week Hansen goes to a local gun range and collects the cardboard backings that are used behind their standard target. The targets depict an unarmed man’s silhouette, a highly common target throughout civilian and police gun ranges. The third component to this ongoing project is comprised of bullets that have been collected from gun ranges. Each bullet, sculpted by impact with a ballistic steel wall, takes on a dramatic new form. The newest component to this ongoing series is entitled Memorial. This work acknowledges and lays bare the heavy price of having a heavily armed civilian population.

Garrett Hansen graduated from Grinnell College, where he studied economics and political science. He completed his MFA in photography at Indiana University and has taught at several universities in the United States and in Asia; he is now an Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of Kentucky. Garrett has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Indonesia, and Japan.

Viewpoint Photographic Art Center presents its annual Members Exhibit throughout the month of July. The strength of this annual exhibit is both the artistic quality and the diversity of the images submitted

The show includes over 90 images by Viewpoint members in a variety of styles and themes. The collection ranges from alternative process, to black and white, digital and time-lapse photography. The art of photography is constantly evolving as the science of the art continues to explore what is possible. The Members Exhibit brings this eclectic range of technicalskill and artistry together in one large and visually impressive exhibit.

(Image: Richard Adams©Moon Over Mono Lake)

Architecture and Abstraction explores architectural lines, symmetry, and textures. The images are primarily black and white. Some, however, have regions of red to produce an intriguing and striking black/white/red scheme, similar to that found in aposematism, i.e., a warning coloration used by some living species. Many images feature symmetry. In asymmetrical images, some elements are encouraged to begin and end in the corners—as though a complete story is being told. At other times, the discrete shapes have dissolved into something amorphous and abstract, leaving ambiguous impressions behind.

Gary E. Karcz’s photography interest began when he was a young teenager.  At that time, he took photos for his school’s yearbook and his city’s newspaper.  This interest persisted through his different jobs: retail sales, construction, IT support, and an educator.  He now devotes more time to photography, as an art form, primarily focusing on architecture and architectural abstractions.

Emerge from the Aether is a collection of wet plate collodion images comprised of portraits and still lifes Dan Herrera has made over the past three years.  In an age of megapixels, camera phones, and a perpetual stream of digital images, Dan’s exhibit invites the viewer to slow down and experience storytelling within the scope of historical photographic printing methods to a time when photography was still in its infancy.  This approach to slowing down and having his hand present in all stage of the process produces unique prints that are both rich in content and physical surface quality, blurring the lines between photographic realism and painterly illusion.  The aesthetics of working this way are used as a means to absorb the viewer in a narrative futuristic and nostalgic.

Please join us at Viewpoint for a very special Artists Reception for the Sacramento After Dark exhibit on April 13 from 6 - 8:30 p.m.

Guest are invited to join in a kick-off celebration for Photography Month Sacramento with a special Artists’ Reception and to get a preview of the new exhibits with photographers in attendance.

There will be a selection of wines, craft beer, light appetizers and an array of desserts to enjoy.

$15 per person (18 and under free).  Purchase tickets HERE

This unique exhibit was inspired by the Instagram page #sacafterdark which is curated by Vicky Thompson. The curatorial committee at Viewpoint reviewed hundreds of images from this page and selected 80 for the exhibit. The Viewpoint curatorial members were impressed by the beauty and artistic quality of the images. The exhibit includes landscapes, abstract images, portraits and more all captured from sunset to the early dawn hours. The collection of images creates a wonderfully atmospheric exhibit.

Stephen Johnson is a landscape photographer, designer and teacher. He has been photographing since 1973 and concentrates on landscape projects exploring wild, endangered spaces and human-altered lands, making images that depict a respect for the land and a real-world celebration of our relationship to nature. The Life Form Series comes from Johnson’s lifelong fascination with organic form and design. Not only has he found solace in the natural world, but his respect for all living things has profoundly affected how he has lived his life. Johnson’s photographic work has long reflected this interest and respect. His fascination with sensual organic form knows no limits. The natural beauty that drew him to photography is most profoundly manifested by the very sensuality of natural form itself. Its beauty is deeply emotional, bound up in the basic instinct and desires of our humanness.  According to Johnson “Finding such form in the real world has been my career”.

In late 2014, Isabel Karl-Herunter, David L. Robertson and Maurice Warniers had their first opportunity to capture photographs together at a workshop near Mendocino, California, organized by Greg Gorman, a highly-respected portrait photographer.  Four months later, David and Mattia Zaldini met at a photography workshop in Venice, Italy, photographing Carnevale.  What was immediately evident was that these four photographers had diverse but coherent approaches to portraiture.

Although these photographers come from Austria, Belgium, Italy and the USA, and approach photography from very diverse directions, they share a common passion for portrait photography presented in black and white.  They prefer black and white images because that removes any distractions and focuses attention on the “hero” of the image.

Judy Molle is passionate about nature and photography. Judy uses the InfraRed Light Spectrum to capture what is usually not visible to the naked eye.

With a sense of adventure, in 1991 Judy became intrigued by the unpredictable nature of the InfraRed spectrum and began experimenting with InfraRed film, quickly mastering her technique with this material. Judy's Copper Duo-Toned Infra-Red images are uniquely one-of-a kind Art Prints.

Many of Judy's photographs are of mysterious landscapes that express and accentuate her love of the natural environment. Using the InfraRed Spectrum, Judy creates unusual images of ethereal places one could only imagine or perhaps reincarnate to.

Dale Green grew up in the San Franscisco Bay Area. He served in the United States Navy as a Hospital Corpsman, earned a degree in Computer Science from CSU Sacramento, and worked for 28 years in Silicon Valley as a software developer and technical writer. Happily retired, he now lives in Rocklin, California.

Road Trip is an exploration of weird Americana, those strange and wonderful things you see along the highway on your way to somewhere else. Green states, "On these trips, I look for incongruous and humorous juxtapositions—a dinosaur attacking a pizza, a Greek statue guarding a truck stop, a sign advertising picnic sites beside a defunct nuclear power plant. I've been asked, 'Did you Photoshop these?'  I reply, 'Nope. You can't make this stuff up.'  And that's one of the reasons I love photography.  With so much strangeness and weirdness out there, I can't wait to get back on the road and take more photographs."

Ken Meyers is a visual person. He says, “Sometimes I find it hard to put words to my feelings.  I suppose that's one of the reasons that I love photography.” As we have all heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”, no place would be truer for Ken than his visits to the concentration camps. Ken made two separate visits over a few years to Dachau, Auschwitz, Birkenau, as well as other places connected with the atrocities of the holocaust, such as Anne Frank's home and Schindler's Factory.

As Ken photographed these places, he was haunted by black and white movies playing in his head - A mother having her children ripped from her arms, the Nazi's assuring those packed like cattle in the train cars that they were being transported to a new ghetto and that everything would be fine, the bodies piled in mass graves or being burned by the thousands.  Ken adds that he is sickened by the experiments of Josef Mengele and that he cried out in pain and sorrow for his fellow man. “How can any human being do this to another?”

These images are his attempt to pass on to you his vision of these dark places.  Ken strongly urges all to pay a visit to the camps, if given the opportunity.  He believes that, “when you do, you will have an indelible mark  placed on your soul for all that lost their lives in those horrid camps.”

Fundraising Auction: Nov. 4, 6 to 9 p.m.

The annual auction of fine art photography is the centerpiece of Viewpoint’s fundraising efforts, enabling the organization to continue to build its outreach, education and exhibit programs. This year Viewpoint will feature over 50 photographers from its in-gallery portfolio program. Many of our portfolio artists are well-known and highly collectable with images sold in galleries throughout the country. The exhibit and auction will include an extensive selection, which highlights a variety of photographic styles.

All the images in the exhibit will be auctioned off on November 4th at an elegant affair including appetizers, luscious desserts, wine and beverages. The silent auction will begin at 7 p.m. and conclude by 8 p.m. Ticket are just $10 a person, so please invite all your friends and family—this is a night to celebrate our local photography artists and to support Viewpoint!

© Sharon Bussert