EXHIBITION

Snap! Downtown presents ‘Constructed Abstractions’ – featuring artworks by Stephane Fedorowsky, Reine Paradis, Dana Hargrove, and Shelley Lake. The works, which include photography, painting, and digital art, connect form, color, line, texture and space. Also on view at OG1 Gallery : ‘L’Eau et La Terre’ (Water and Earth) – with Rafael Tongol, Heather Evans Smith, Alicia Soltani, and Cherree Mallette, and OG2 Gallery : ‘Interplay’ – a multimedia exhibit and installation by Krista Berman.

Fine art argentic photographer Stéphane Fedorowsky uses the traditional darkroom process to develop and create surreal hand made photomontages. Using techniques such as solarization, superimposition and rayographs, each of his images undergoes metamorphoses to become unique prints. The Parisian artist made his US exhibition debut in Los Angeles, and was showcased at Snap! in 2014. His new series, ‘Surrealist Impressions’ is being exhibited for the first time at Snap! Downtown.
Reine Paradis is a French artist based in Los Angeles, California. Shot throughout America, her photo series “jungle” takes us on an introspective journey across a symbolic and chromatic world, blurring the lines between reality and the imaginary. The main character of her scenes is invariably a staged woman (Paradis herself) dressed in orange, who interacts with a blue and white environment, creating an artistically surreal world.
Dana Hargrove’s works look at how our ideals and values are shaped by the fabric of our society and our identity within a nation. As a conceptually based artist, she moves freely between mediums, utilizing the sketchbook and painting as familiar touchstone, yet often including sculpture, video, animation, photography and installation within the exhibitions. Dana is a Professor at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.
Shelly Lake is a photographer and digital artist. Her experimentation with art and technology began more than 35 years ago, as a computer science major at Brown University. At MIT she trained with Nicholas Negroponte and Harold Edgerton, pioneers in the fusion of science, art and technology. Featured in numerous international exhibitions and film festivals, she won a Clio award and Japan’s Nicograph award for ‘Still Picture Computer Graphics Grand Prize.‘ Her work is collected worldwide, and she has been commissioned by the American Embassy in Nigeria, Apple Computer, Peter and Eileen Norton, Santa Monica, CA, and the Amway Center in Orlando.
Alicia Soltani is a photographer based in Orlando, Florida who uses film as an instrument to create dreamlike images. In her featured experimental series, she soaked her 35mm film in a wide array of concoctions (from drain cleaner to carrot juice) prior to shooting the roll. The results are organic and fascinating.
Rafael Tongol is an award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, WWD, American Photo, among other national and international publications. Educated in Fine Arts and Film, he has lived and captured images across Asia and Europe before settling in the U.S. ‘Ephemeral‘ is a personal series about nature and time. Rafael photographs delicately framed landscapes, at the magical moment between daylight and dusk, capturing the painterly quality of color, texture and light.
Heather Evans Smith is an award winning fine art and conceptual portrait photographer based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Her work captures both the everyday and the whimsical, telling stories of women and struggle, reality and the surreal. Smith’s work has been featured in exhibitions, magazines, literary journals and online publications. She was chosen as winner of Ron Howard’s Project Imaginat10n and one of PDNs The Curator and a Critical Mass Top 50 Finalist in 2014. Heather’s series have been exhibited at Snap! Space in three shows since 2014.
Cherree Mallette is a storyteller whose series of work represent chapters in her life. The ‘Abstract Splashes‘ series are a visual expression of the artist developing her own ‘bubble.’ Her dry brush paintings are monochromatic and photorealistic. Originally from Ohio, Cherree now lives and works in Orlando, Florida.
Krista Berman is a mixed-media artist living and working in both Orlando, Florida and Detroit, Michigan. Her multi-faceted creations explore the natural balance of grid structure, repurposing found objects into neo-conceptual work and turning urban detritus into lyrical sculptural assemblage. Her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries as well as St. Louis Art Museum, Orlando Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum and Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center, and is in private collections across the United States and Europe.