Planet Press Release

Julie Keyes presents the exhibition “Planet” at 4 North Main Gallery opening Friday, July 29th from 5 PM to 8PM. In the exhibition, “Planet”, Keyes curates a visual conversation between photographer Terri Gold and painter Steve Miller.

Planet: Populations migrate and indigenous cultures disappear. The competition for natural resources depletes our biodiversity while science proves the earth is warming. We live in a planet under stress where Terri Gold captures the last moments of fading cultures. At risk is a vast archive of knowledge and expertise of healers and weavers, poets and saints. Steve Miller uses medical technology to give the planet a check-up. If the Amazon rain forests are the lungs of the planet, then Miller x-rays these lungs to look inside the patient, Earth.

Terri Gold’s lifelong body of work “Still Points in a Turning World “focuses on Asia’s vanishing tribal heritage and has been widely published and exhibited. Recently, she was featured in aCurator Magazine and Lenscratch and was a winner in the Planet Magazine and London International Creative Competitions. Gold’s work is interpretive in nature and incorporates the use of infrared light and the invisible light spectrum. She is interested in the myriad ways in which people find meaning in their lives, how an individual explores his or her existence through their traditions. This current series, entitled “Into the Mists of Time “ is about life in Guizhou, China.

Over the past 25 years, Steve Miller has presented 33 solo exhibitions at institutions in the United States, China, France, and Germany. His exhibitions have been reviewed in Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, ArtForum, ARTnews, and Art in America. Miller was one of the first artists to experiment with computers in the early 1980’s, and his work today continues to integrate science and technology with fine art. Using the lens of technology Miller reinvents at the traditional painted portrait, the world of fashion, particle physics, molecular biology and the world environmental crisis. His current project, entitled “Health of the Planet,” is about the rainforest in Brazil.

4 North Main Gallery is located at 1 North Main Street in Southampton, New York.

Gallery hours: July 30th, 12 – 7PM and July 31st, 12-5PM.

All inquiries to:

juliekeyes15@yahoo.com

terrigoldworldimagery.com

stevemiller.com

July 19, 2011 by Terri Gold

Into the Mists of Time: Guizhou, China

Click here to slideshow

Artist Statement

Planet : Into the Mists of Time

4 North Main Gallery Southampton , New York Opening Friday July 29th 5 to 8 pm

My ongoing body of work, “Still Points in a Turning World”, explores our universal cross-cultural truths: the importance of family, community, ritual and the amazing diversity of its expression. This chapter in the series is entitled “Planet: Into the Mists of Time”.

In April 2011, I returned to Guangxi and Guizhou China, an area rich in minority culture and stunningly beautiful. When I was last there in 1997, I visited Miao, Dong and Shui villages that had never received western guests. I wondered how different it would be…

Each day our van would climb around hundreds of switchbacks, our faithful driver Chen, his eyes totally focused, honking at each bend. Winding our way through 2000-year-old rice terraces intricately carved into the mountainside, higher and higher into the mists, the landscape green and lush, roads newly built and muddy, finally we would arrive.

The villagers awaited us with welcome ceremonies that have not changed for generations. Men playing bamboo flutes and women dancing in magnificent, elaborately hand-embroidered outfits with sparkling silver pheasant and dragon headdresses. The older people are still wearing traditional dress everyday but the next generation only wears these colorful garments for festivals. This is a significant change, for these tribes’ identity is best represented by their intricate textile work. Now the younger generation wants a different life.

The city has become a synonym for modernity, the country backwardness. These are not stagnant societies there is change in the air. It is predicted that in the next few decades, China will experience the largest human migration in the world’s history, from rural to urban. At risk is a vast archive of knowledge and expertise of healers and weavers, silversmiths and musicians, poets and saints.

My work is interpretive in nature. My technique involves creating imagery using the invisible infrared light spectrum. Working with infrared light suits the subject matter and the timeless quality of the images. The post processing is part of my medium creating work that combines the use of the lens with technology.

We all lose when ancient skills and visionary wisdom are forgotten. . Traditions and rituals are still points, they are our histories and our connections to the past, and they are our future as well. As a “visual archeologist” I am interested in capturing these last moments of the tapestry of tribal life.