His lens captures world of mystery By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
|
|
||
|
Ambiguous scenes, potent feelings, a good-size pinch of mystery and just a blush of sardonic humor. That seems to be the recipe for George Krause's photographs. And what a brilliant recipe it is. Four decades of work by this internationally renowned photographer -- and new Central Texas resident -- is featured in mini-retrospective now at D. Berman Gallery. Krause, who was born in Philadelphia in 1937, received his training at the Philadelphia College of Art. He received the first Prix de Rome and the first Fulbright/Hays grant ever awarded to a photographer, two Guggenheim fellowships and three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. And his work has been exhibited around the world and collected by many institutions. Recently, Krause retired from the University of Houston, where he established that school's fine art photography program and -- lucky for us -- settled in Wimberley. Krause, throughout his career, has worked in four series. "The Street" is something of a personal journal of places he has been, including Mexico, Spain, Italy and Philadelphia. "I Nudi" takes the human nude as its subject. The photographs in "Saints & Martyrs" features religious statuary. Tombstones and cemetery monuments from several countries compose "Qui Riposa." Abundantly beguiling, Krause's work is fundamentally surreal -- surreal in the most literal use of the word, that is. Krause's work is beyond the real, above reality. Take one of his more famous images, "Shadow," a 1964 photo of a street scene in Spain. A hunched old woman moves down the street, her shadow on a wall rising up behind her, menacing, threatening, like some strange demon. It's suspenseful, dramatic, and it's a mood that pervades all of Krause's work. Technically, Krause employs stark contrasts of light and dark, and most impressively, his lens captures the exacting detail within a large scene or tableaux. Krause's
latest experiments are sculptures with photo images printed on them.
But these pieces look contrived and are hardly in the same league as
the rest of Krause's work. Ultimately,
Krause's work is about fantasy: Are the cemetery statuary real and the
humans artificial, or vice versa? It's hard to tell in Krause's world
-- an edgy, emotive place rich with mystery and awe.
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|