Sandi Fellman: Deception

May 21 - July 9, 2011

Photography dealer Kathy McCarver Root and her gallery, KMR Arts, proudly announce the opening of a one person show of color pigment photographs entitled, “Sandi Fellman: Deception.” The opening is May 21 with an artist’s reception from 2 to 5 pm and the exhibition continues through July 9, 2011.

Sandi Fellman’s work has often focused on the natural world. By taking singular flowers and insects into the studio, Fellman transforms her subjects into abstract studies of shape, color and form. Simultaneously, these images are a 21st century play on 19th century botanical and entomological illustrations. Gone are the required facts and details present in naturalist illustrations. They are replaced by a contemporary, modernist vision of fleeting moments, butterflies on the move, glimpses of flowers, and a purposeful abstraction.

Fellman reflects on her new work:
Photographs from the series “Deception” loosely explore the visual ambiguity and interconnections between plants and insects. The 20th century French philosopher Deleuze, writes extensively on “the orchid and the wasp”, cross pollination, sexual deception. The notion that things are always in a state of “becoming” have been inspirational to me within the creation of this series. Deleuze refers to an “origami cosmos” constantly in a state of folding, unfolding, and refolding. These ideas have created a structural framework for this work. In the end, it is the isolation of the intense fragile beauty of the subjects, and the infinite ways in which they resemble each other that compels and moves me to make these images.

Grace Glueck wrote of Fellman’s work in the New York Times: “Ms. Fellman’s poetic ways with the camera have been evident in earlier series of pictures, and these photographs continue the delicate less-is-more elegance that has characterized her work. Nor has her skill abated in conveying the core of her deceptively simple subject matter.”

Fellman’s photographs are in numerous permanent collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, La Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Houston Museum of Art. Chado Ralph Rucci, Bill Blass, Saks Fifth Avenue, Clinique, Countess Lucienne Von Doz and Charlotte Moss number among Fellman’s commercial clients.