20/20 Photo Festival & THE HALIDE PROJECT present:
From the Ashes

The landscape is everchanging. Whether at the scale of geologic or human time, our planet is in constant flux. However, climate change is causing natural disruptions that are more frequent and catastrophic in scope, and we – during our relatively brief sojourn on the planet – are witness to these transformations. 

As a way to process the emotions – grief, reverence, curiosity, anger, etc. – that are associated with the loss of natural habitats, artists create work in response to the changes they observe. Those represented in From the Ashes utilize historic and alternative process photography to explore both personal and political relationships with landscapes being impacted and transformed by a variety of causes. From documenting clearcuts and abstracting feed lot architecture to creating imagery of and directly onto local flora, they individualize the artistic response to the loss of natural spaces. Using destruction as their starting point, they create something new out of the literal and proverbial ashes of what was. 

Special programming includes a Virtual Opening on September 21 at 7pm

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Kari Varner (American b. 1991 Overland Park, KS) is an artist whose work explores representations of the landscape through the photographic image. Kari received her BFA in Electronic Media Arts Design from the University of Denver and her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. Kari currently teaches photography at Binghamton University in New York. She has previously taught at Santa Reparata International School of Art, Florence Institute of Art and Design and the University of Denver. Kari has led workshops at Studio Art College International and Anderson Ranch Arts Center.

Her recent work has focused on humans’ impact on the landscape, particularly through industrialized agricultural and waterway channelization. Using satellite imagery, historical photographic processes, and experimental image making, Kari seeks to portray the ways that we have profoundly altered our land and water.
karivarner.com

Laurie Beck Peterson’s work examines how light, time, and natural systems shape one another, revealing cycles of growth, loss, and transformation. Using plant-based and alternative photographic processes, she collaborates with sunlight, water, and organic materials to create images that evolve over time. Each piece becomes a record of interaction as a living surface that reflects our shared connection to the changing environment.
lauriebeckpeterson.com

Tony Bellaver is a Bay Area photographer and mixed media artist specializing in experimental photographic techniques. Between 1985 and 1986, Bellaver served as a darkroom assistant at the Ansel Adams works shops in Yosemite for Charles Crammer who taught Cibachrome printing and dye transfer printing, before receiving his undergraduate degree at San Jose State University, and graduate degree at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). While in graduate school, Bellaver expanded his vision of art, focusing on work that incorporated photographic elements using alternative photographic processes.

Since graduating from SFAI, his artwork has been exhibited at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, DeYoung Museum of San Francisco, and he has had work shown by Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Los Angeles; Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley; and Steffany Martz gallery, Chelsea. He and his partner Mary live and make their art in Oakland also working collaboratively as Quite Contrary Press with their border collie Luna.
tonybellaver.com

Yelena Zhavoronkova is a San Francisco-based Fine Art Photographer and Graphic Designer. A graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Art and Industry with a Master’s in Industrial Design, she have been a graphic designer for over forty years. Over the past fifteen years, she has shifted her focus toward intensive fine art photography. She works in project-based series, which allows her to explore the full spectrum of experience: the pains of life, the complicated nature of relationships, and a persistent hope for the future. Her work is simultaneously personal and universal, aiming to speak to viewers on an intimate, familiar level. She is an active member of the photography community, showing her work in multiple exhibitions and collaborating with a supportive network of fellow photographers. These groups are immensely helpful, providing the creative exchange and everyday support that keep her inspired to move toward.

yzdesign.com