Southern Accents Magazine
September - October 2006
Julie Cole-Miller
September - October 2006
Julie Cole-Miller
Picture Perfect:
Collecting Art and Photography
Stephanie Hoppen
Collecting Art and Photography
Stephanie Hoppen
SATURDAY-OCT. 20
Zeitgeist Gallery welcomes back former Nashvillian John Folsom for its
latest show, opening Saturday with a reception from
6 to 8 p.m.
Now based in Atlanta, the photographer captures imagery from the
natural world — here, his focus is on the overhead canopies formed by
forest treetops — then layers his black-and-white gelatin prints with oil
paint and wax. The resulting body of work has a dreamy yet powerful
quality, what the artist calls "a kind of spiritual mysticism based on a
symbiosis of light and organic form."
These images offer "an allegory of hope," Folsom says, an open-
ended statement that allows the viewer to form his or her own
response based on any number of ideas: philosophy,
environmentalism or uniquely personal associations.
The show runs through Oct. 20 at Zeitgeist, 1819 21st Ave. S. For
more information, visit www.zeitgeist-art.com or call 256-4805.
— JONATHAN MARX, STAFF WRITER
Zeitgeist Gallery welcomes back former Nashvillian John Folsom for its
latest show, opening Saturday with a reception from
6 to 8 p.m.
Now based in Atlanta, the photographer captures imagery from the
natural world — here, his focus is on the overhead canopies formed by
forest treetops — then layers his black-and-white gelatin prints with oil
paint and wax. The resulting body of work has a dreamy yet powerful
quality, what the artist calls "a kind of spiritual mysticism based on a
symbiosis of light and organic form."
These images offer "an allegory of hope," Folsom says, an open-
ended statement that allows the viewer to form his or her own
response based on any number of ideas: philosophy,
environmentalism or uniquely personal associations.
The show runs through Oct. 20 at Zeitgeist, 1819 21st Ave. S. For
more information, visit www.zeitgeist-art.com or call 256-4805.
— JONATHAN MARX, STAFF WRITER
Our Critics Picks
September 6, 2007
September 6, 2007
Art
JOHN FOLSOM In a seeming stand against puniness of spirit, scale and
vision, former Nashvillian Folsom aims his camera into the treetops and
seeks nothing less than the point where the finite vanishes into the infinite.
Inspired by hikes as far afield as Reelfoot Lake and Alberta, his “Canopy”
series consists of smaller black-and-white gelatin prints combined like
puzzle pieces into arrestingly huge vistas of forest cover. The images are
rendered all the more mystical by treatments with oil paint and wax that give
light the tactile density of fog and shadow a smudgy otherworldliness.
Folsom cites the God’s-eye panoramas of the Hudson River School and
Caspar David Friedrich’s morbid German romanticism as touchstones, but
his upward-straining branches, imposing trunks and shafts of fearsome
radiance are the haunted woods of a kid’s fairytale imagining. Anyone who
watched the last shot of Terrence Malick’s The New World in tearful awe will
feel the sensation come back with a rush. The show runs Sept. 8 through
Oct. 20 at Zeitgeist in Hillsboro Village; Folsom will appear at the opening
reception. 6 to 8 p.m. at Zeitgeist Gallery —JIM RIDLEY
JOHN FOLSOM In a seeming stand against puniness of spirit, scale and
vision, former Nashvillian Folsom aims his camera into the treetops and
seeks nothing less than the point where the finite vanishes into the infinite.
Inspired by hikes as far afield as Reelfoot Lake and Alberta, his “Canopy”
series consists of smaller black-and-white gelatin prints combined like
puzzle pieces into arrestingly huge vistas of forest cover. The images are
rendered all the more mystical by treatments with oil paint and wax that give
light the tactile density of fog and shadow a smudgy otherworldliness.
Folsom cites the God’s-eye panoramas of the Hudson River School and
Caspar David Friedrich’s morbid German romanticism as touchstones, but
his upward-straining branches, imposing trunks and shafts of fearsome
radiance are the haunted woods of a kid’s fairytale imagining. Anyone who
watched the last shot of Terrence Malick’s The New World in tearful awe will
feel the sensation come back with a rush. The show runs Sept. 8 through
Oct. 20 at Zeitgeist in Hillsboro Village; Folsom will appear at the opening
reception. 6 to 8 p.m. at Zeitgeist Gallery —JIM RIDLEY