9th - 30th September
Private View on September 9th 6.30 - 8.30 pm
Open Days on September 17th 12.00 - 6.00pm and September 24th 12.00 - 6.00pm.
Ana Maria Nicholson & Rudie Berkhout Collaboration produced in 1989.
Series of 12 multiple exposure, two colour reflection holograms each 13 x 17"
Slithers of optical surfaces allow two figures to exist in the same space. Planes of light trace the two faces, revealing them as if explored through touch. These incomplete and overlapping visual shells remind us that we only experience the surface and of the mysterious beauty of perception.
Ana Maria Nicholson and Rudie Berkhout are both prolific holographic artists who each shaped different genres of the art form.
Nicholson primarily works with portraiture, having created holograms of celebrities, spiritual leaders and diverse people. Her series 'Into the Night' captures the plight and power of women. Created in single and multiple pulse laser exposures, the women hold a space. Berkhout crafted holograms with laser light, creating spatially animated landscapes from simple objects and optics. His work stood out in the field of holography, exploring the concept of holo-kinetics through optical spatial dynamics.
Nicholson and Berkhout first met at the Museum of Holography where Nicholson was the director of the Portrait Studio. As Nicholson describes: “It was a very hot afternoon and I was working on the laser when I looked up and saw this very handsome and charming man saying, “Can I help?” It was Rudie whom I had not met before although, of course I knew who he was. Rudie and I became very close friends, he would bike over to the Museum every afternoon and we would go to the coffee shop on Canal Street and talk for hours. What does it mean to be an artist, what are the social and spiritual values that an artist has to confront, what is holographic art, which is the best way to align the object beam. He gave me the encouragement to think as a holographic artist, to respect portraiture as an artistic medium, to experiment and explore the dimensions and space of the holographic medium.”
“It was meeting Rudie Berkhout that was the turning point in my career as an artist and a holographer.”
Excerpt from ‘Holography: A Love Story’ – Ana Maria Nicholson, 2009 presented at the 8th International Symposium on Display Holography, Shenzhen China
Note:
I came across The Holographic Collaborations series while sorting through the Holocenter archives in 2007 and thought they were brilliant. The shadowing of the pulse laser light used to illuminated the figures creates sculptural shells, like fragments of being that revealed a tenderness and complexity. Bringing the works to Ana Maria Nicholson, she told me stories of her collaboration with Rudie Berkhout in 1989, and that the works were never shown. I stubbornly insisted that we exhibit the works. Nicholson contacted Berkhout and he also brought new works for the exhibition at the Holocenter’s Court Square Gallery in April 2008. Tragically in September that year Rudie Berkhout passed away unexpectedly.
Martina Mrongovius 2014
(from Interference:Coexistence Exhibition Reader, Curators Note)
Holographic Collaborations, a text by Ana Maria Nicholson, is availalbe to download as a pdf file here.
In association with The Center for the Holographic arts.
Martina Mrongovius will be addressing the Royal Photographic Society 3D Imaging & holography Group in September. Date to be confirmed.