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Michael Gesinger and Denis R. Kempe
From February 15th until March 27th, Benham Studio-Gallery is privileged to feature work by the following photographers:
Michael Gesinger, a Benham resident artist, who will show "New Works in
Nudes and Interiors of Shadow and Light". Gesinger's photographs of nudes
have received widespread critical acclaim and have been featured in
respected trade publications such as Collectors' Photography, Art Week, and
Camera and Darkroom. His work resides in many permanent collections,
including those of the Portland Art Museum, the King County Arts
Commission, and Pacific Northwest Bell. Over the last 20 years, Mr.
Gesinger has exhibited throughout the US and Europe, from New York City to
Seattle to Barcelona. He is most renowned for his elegant, innovative work
with nudes, and this show at Benham will feature his latest photographs in
this genre. Mr. Gesinger's previous nudes have evoked a pristine, gem-like
clarity that emphasizes the classic stylistic eloquence of the human form.
His new work uses photographic tones and focus to explore the inner
spiritual motion of the nude as perceived by the artist. This exhibition
will also showcase a new direction to Mr. Gesinger's art: haunting, toned
images of centuries-old church and chateau interiors in France, Mexico, and
Italy. These photographs illustrate both the beauty and radical otherness
of the past.
Denis R. Kempe, another resident Benham artist, who will exhibit a body
of new work entitled "Sky Dwellings". Mr. Kempe's photographs are in the
permanent collection of the Portland Art Museum and in other collections.
He has shown work in many different venues throughout the US, and in 1994,
his art was chosen by acclaimed photographer Joel-Peter Witkin to appear in
that year's Northwest Annual at Seattle's Center on Contemporary Art
(CoCA). Mr. Kempe is also a co-director of Collusion Unlimited Gallery, one
of Seattle's premier sponsors of contemporary art exhibitions. In addition,
he has co-produced, along with Catherine Peila and former Benham co-owner
Lisa Sharamitaro, the project "No Apologies Necessary... Spirits Unbroken,"
a compendium of Eastern European perspectives drawing from a diverse range
of artistic and social disciplines. Mr. Kempe is well-known for his black
and white photographs of urban architectural details and deserted city
streets. Culled from his extensive national and international travels, his
art is a testimony to the duration of visible forms that are sponsored by
darkness. For his show at Benham, he and his Leica camera travelled to the
American Southwest in order to better document the subtle psychological
intricacies of the region through its architecture. This work is a welcome
respite from the R. C. Gorman pastiches and garish postcard photographs
that pander to tourists.
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