Yuri Long & Jon MAlis
Curated by Iwan Bagus
View a selection of Photographs from Gallery Proposal winners,
Yuri Long and Jon Malis.
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Visit the Gallery on Saturdays an Sundays from
1-4pm to see the exhibit in person.
Exhibition (Online and In Person) December 4th - January 18th
Free Artist Talk - Wednesday, December 8th at 7pm on Zoom.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89004126868
Gallery Reception - Friday, December 10th 5-7pm
Curator
Iwan Bagus
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Iwan Bagus was born in Jakarta, Indonesia. He began his career in front of the camera, working as a model in South East Asia for over 10 years. While modeling, he received a B.A. in Economics in Jakarta. Soon after he moved to Washington, DC to earn his M.S. in Engineering from George Washington University and M.A in Film Production from American University.
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Iwan’s work has been shown at the National Geographic Society, The Corcoran-Washington Performing Arts Society, The Carnegie Institute-DC, The Center for Fine Art Photography-Colorado, The Museum of America Organization States, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, H-Gallery Bangkok, Times Square-NYC, among others. His photography exhibitions have been reviewed by the Washington Post, Nation Public Radio affiliate WAMU, Washington City Paper, Voice of America, and others. Iwan has worked in New York, Los Angeles, DC, and Indonesia for exclusive commercial clients and magazine. He has also shot for non-profit organizations in DC and New York. Iwan uses his extensive experience in front of the lens to help direct models, actors, and portrait subjects. He has also served as a juror in photography competitions.
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Currently, Iwan is the Head of Photography concentration at the University of the District of Columbia, and a Professorial Lecturer at American University. He also gives private photography lessons for the local community. Please feel free to contact him for further info. When not on a photo shoot or teaching, Iwan spends his time cooking up spicy creations for his extended family, gardening, and playing with Ixan & Imran – two Salukis, and Ilian – the Bengal.
Left to Right: Yuri Long, Iwan Bagus, and Jon Malis
lun.r.001 Lunar Daylight
"It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the moon." - Galileo Galilei, Sidereus Nuncius, Venice, 1610
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lun.r.001: Lunar Daylight is a cycle of detailed studies of Luna as a body in space as observed in the sky over Washington, DC between July 2019 and January 2021. As we gathered to celebrate human ingenuity and accomplishment on the 50th anniversary of NASA’s Apollo moon landing on July 20th, 1969, my attention remained on the celestial orb itself, an object whose alien yet familiar beauty first inspired us to push the limits of exploration beyond our own globe. Meditative reflections rooted in the simple harmonies of color, shape, and composition, result in a digital distillation of Luna’s essence as she is bathed in light.
Originally planned to conclude with the anniversary year, my aim at the outset was simply to create images describing the beauty of the moon. But the lockdown in 2020 brought me back to Luna's relentless rhythms, the celestial body transformed into a touchstone, proof of continuity countering that disjointed pandemic non-time.
Bio:
Yuri Long is an artist and librarian living and working in Washington, DC. He studied philosophy at Penn State as an undergrad and attended library school at Catholic University before becoming the special collections librarian at the National Gallery of Art. His prints, books, zines and other works can be found under the Antiquated Modern moniker online and at Studio 20 of the Brookland Arts Walk.
The Hand of God
Referencing the nickname for a darkroom technique for significantly manipulating the brightness of parts of a photographic print, The Hand of God investigates the most omnipresent element used in the production of photographic work – light.
Working in the studio and on location, photographers, videographers and cinematographers employ a wide range of lights and lighting modifiers to control, diffuse, shape and contort the light illuminating the scene. While these tools are never directly seen in the final composition, their use is integral to the desired aesthetic outcome, each fixture and modifier leaving a specific visual fingerprint in the image.
By turning the camera around – away from the scene and onto the lights and modifiers themselves, my photographs in The Hand of God make visible what is required for the image to exist: (controlled) light. While it is impossible to thoroughly visualize the exact impact each individual tool imparts onto the image, these images serve as a catalogue of how artificial light is employed to create a photographic image.
The work is presented as a series of large-format photographic images, reproducing common photographic and cinematographic lighting instruments and tools found in studios and on commercial sets.
The Hand of God continues my ongoing investigations into understanding and interpreting the viewership experience – roughly, “what we see and how we see it”. In previous projects, I have documented the stains, folds and imperfections of old and deteriorating projections screens (imparting their unique marks into the projected image), physically represented how digital technologies represent color, questioned the validity of ‘expired’ and abused test charts, and revealed how Photoshop interpolates a single pixel. My practice is about the experience of the image, and The Hand of God expands this artistic conversation by depicting the most elemental of photographic forces.