Starting September 11th through October 8th, 2008, seven of my pieces will be included in the Concordia University Photo Biennial. Curated by Cate Vermeland, this year’s theme is Beauty and I’m honored that my work was even considered the distinction, let alone be included in the group exhibition.
Reticent Rhythm © Brett Kosmider
The Concordia Gallery is located at 1371 Marshall Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. or by appointment. Closing reception is Saturday October 4th from 4-8pm. View Map
Exhibition Postcard © Concordia University St. Paul
I’ve tweaked and expanded my artist statement to reflect the grouping of my photographs for this particular exhibition as well as framing my future work into a more cohesive unit.
Artist Statement
I am drawn to the mysterious, dark and spiritual places in nature. Places that are off the beaten path where no one has been or even considers going. After returning to some of those places many times a year, for perhaps many years, a deep connection forms. In different seasons and under different kinds of light I start to recognize the same trees and rocks, even the patterns of lichen and the feel of the duff under my feet. When I’m in those places lurking in the shadows, often making photographs of other shadows, I have a profound sense of being where the tiny sounds of insects and wind rustling through dried grasses mixes with the subsonic rush of blood in my ears and it makes me stop. To me it is a sacred experience. It is my own form of meditation – a commune with the land where I hope no one else goes.
This series is a result of the many journeys I have made from the din and fog of civilization to some of the rare open peopleless spaces that remain on the Great Lakes. Both the physical and temporal journeys have been key inspirations to my work. As arduous as some of those journeys have been they inspire me to seek out the beauty of light and composition where few others tread because in urban settings it seems beauty is fleeting and commonly consumed en masse. My photographs are little treasures of grand places.
Over thirty years ago those journeys first started out as annual family trips to the rocky shores of the Door Peninsula in Wisconsin. It is there that I first learned to appreciate the smell of the lake, observe and read the fickle atmosphere over the open water and examine the strikingly diverse fauna and rare plants. The reluctant return trip to the city always motivated the following trip.
In this work I am interested in showing the simple beauty of time passing, my camera a witness to the language of the land, the collection of light over time as objects in the landscape move in cyclic rhythms. My journeys from the city inspire me to find peace in the landscape as every mile behind me means I am closer to my own nirvana. These photographs are the result of that ever-continuing journey.
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