2019 NYC Arts Festival

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I’m so excited to participate in the annual Arts Festival presented by the Center for Latter-Day Saint Arts in New York City. I will be presenting my work Friday morning at 11am in the Biblioteca. There will also be a limited edition catalog of my exhibited works that includes an essay by Laura Allred Hurtado.

Hope to see you there!

DE|MARCATION: A SURVEY OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY IN UTAH

I’m so thrilled to be part of this incredible portfolio curated by Amy Jorgensen and Ed Bateman! It’s a beautiful collection and wonderfully crafted art object. This collection will be on view at Granary Arts in May 2019. The portfolio will also be placed in permanent art collections. I’m grateful to be included among this group of talented photographers! Enjoy!

DE|MARCATION

LIMITED EDITION PORTFOLIO

A Survey of Contemporary Photography in Utah

Edition of 35, 17 x 22 inches

Curated by Amy Jorgensen and Edward Bateman with included critical essays. Portfolio box, letterpress printed title, index and essay pages created in collaboration with Red Butte Press at the University of Utah, distributed by Granary Arts.

DE | MARCATION was originally conceived by Amy Jorgensen to support the unique vision of artists in the state of Utah and to build on the rich discourse of image making in the region.

Early photographic surveys of the American West explored the physical territory; this portfolio examines the conceptual landscape of creative practice by photographic artists spanning the vast spaces of Utah. The artists have strong connections to the state and their images represent a diversity beyond geographic boundaries; they interrupt convention and draw new lines. Intended to serve as a document of a historical moment, this portfolio was created as
an act of generosity, especially through its inclusion of a younger generation of artists who represent not only the current state of photographic art, but also its future.

Included Artists: Kimberly Anderson, Christine Baczek, David Baddley, Edward Bateman, David Brothers, Van Chu, Samuel Davis, Daniel George, Haynes Goodsell, Mark Hedengren, Amy Jorgensen, Natalie Kirk, Karalee Kuchar, Carsten Meier, Bernard C. Meyers, Andrew Patteson, Kim Raff, Nancy E. Rivera, Fazilat Soukhakian, Josh Winegar

For acquisition and pricing contact: Amy Jorgensen amy@granaryarts.org 435.283.3456

Header image: Karalee Kuchar

Artfairs Seoul + Soho Photo Gallery Alternative Processes Exhibition

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The Hotel Riviera Cheongdam, Seoul, Korea

October 26-28

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Upon the Threshold

© Karalee Kuchar

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14th Annual Alternative Processes Competition and Exhibition

Soho Photo Gallery, New York City, New York

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Shadow Ritual

© Karalee Kuchar

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Join me in New York City for the opening on Tuesday, November 6, 6-8pm.

I’m looking forward to meeting the other artists including the well known juror Dan Burkholder!

PhotoPlace Gallery: Water

My image Involuntary Plunge is included in the latest collection at PhotoPlace Gallery: Water. To view the entire gallery click on the link below!

WATER

Juror’s Statement

I have to be careful not to be lured back by my past in coastal Maine. Years spent in Rockport and Camden. The thick fog over the water most mornings. The memory of the sound of the ice breaking on the lake in late spring. The way the harbor would miraculously freeze into windblown peaks in the winter. The ice on the windows making me think of Minor White and his time in Rochester, but then bringing me back to my childhood in upstate New York near the Adirondacks, winters so intense we could climb from the snow banks onto the roof…(icicles still grow to several feet in length, the ponds still freeze over smooth for hockey and skating, my son is gleeful every year when we visit my parents).

These photographs of water pull at me in unexpected ways. I feel a longing to return to the extremes of the Northeast, away from the sun and drought of California, to the crushing humidity of summer and the ceaseless snow of the winter. I know this is nostalgia at its finest, but jurying this exhibition of Water has surprised me by not just the flood of memories, but the surprising quality and variety of the pictures. I’ve actually honestly never had a more difficult time jurying a show. When I narrowed the nearly 3000 photographs down to 290, I stared at them and thought: I could curate a show of the sea, the wild, unpredictable sea. Just the sea. Sometimes black, sometimes azure, sometimes tumultuous, sometimes like glass, sometimes opaque, sometimes translucent. It was tempting to think of a line of fathomless oceans on the walls, their horizons only shifting with storms or broken by lightning bolts or occasionally a couple embracing way too far from shore.

But there were too many other excellent photographs entered into this competition that only an intensity of seeing could discover: bubbles trapped in the ice, pristine snow beneath heavily laden branches, fissures in the frozen lake’s surface, sheets of ice patterned like feathers, figures floating underwater, people disappearing into the sublime water, strange dramatic landscapes with odd islands or red pools or impossible waterfalls, figures waiting on that edge where the water and land meet, dioramas of potent and somewhat terrifying scenes, hands gripping edges, night skies over the surf, pinhole and plastic camera images of the moving water and the shifting tides….there was so much to take in and all of it so moody and a lot of it dark, but some of it celebratory, like a man in a tiny bathing suit sailing into the water while an audience of people wait on the frozen ice around the hole or the delicate memory of a faded slide held up against the landscape or children playing in the spray on the summer lawn.

Congratulations to all the artists and thank you for bringing me back to the places I’ve loved and left and also for allowing me to feel the power of the ocean and the gift of the seasons. It’s been a spectacular journey

Ann Jastrab, April 2018

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Image: Involuntary Plunge by Karalee Kuchar

All Rights Reserved

Closing Reception April 29, 2017

Join us at Miri Gallery Saturday, April 29th from 6-9pm for the final night of

A Long Mournful Cry

Thank you to all those who have come to see the show in support of this great journey!

MFA Exhibition - A Long Mournful Cry

Process Statement

As I spent time at the Great Salt Lake, I felt myself being drawn to the vast, open landscape sometimes referred to as “America’s Dead Sea”. Perhaps the landscape mirrored my own in-between state of existence. My repetitious engagements with the landscape became ritualistic performances I began to document with my camera stationed on a tripod. The images recorded by the camera became documentation of movement over time that I wished to show in a single photograph. The panoramic photographs are composited of more than thirty images layered together to create a single image that represents a map of time.

Throughout my journey, I found myself learning how to be comfortable in liminal spaces. It is in these spaces where we are most teachable. My original desire was to overcome the opposition and darkness I was facing. However, through my ritualistic process, I discovered the power of standing still on the threshold between two spaces. In the end, my journey taught me how to find my own geographical stillness within myself. A peace that resides within that we can return to when the ground under our feet is ever moving.

Artist Statement

Just as the sun rises and sets each day, we repetitiously engage in ritualistic practices to seek transformation. Viewing an image of motion is to experience a duration of time invisible to the unaided eye.

The bodies we house can be resilient to the weathering winds that surround us, unless we become subjects of constant confrontation. Under attack, our bodies and souls seek protection and preservation. At times, life can seem a blur as we move across the surface of the earth. Beneath a veil of opposition, we are hidden from the light which is our life source. We mechanically move through liminal spaces, trusting that the light of self-knowledge will be revealed to us. As we stay in motion, we repeat ourselves season after season, but we are never the same.

Month of Photography Denver 2017

MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY 2017

Between the Medium

An overview of the far reaching applications and concepts emerging in photography today.

MoP Denver is a biennial celebration of fine art photography with hundreds of collaborative public events throughout the region.

Click on the link below for full information about participating galleries including the Walker Fine Art Gallery where my image Ghostbird will be included as part of the show Unexplored Terrain 

http://www.mopdenver.com/mop-2017-programs/#/walker-fine-art-1/

Image detail: Ghostbird by Karalee Kuchar

 

Walker Fine Art Gallery: Unexplored Terrain

Photography is 190 years young, and there is still much unexplored terrain.  The artists featured in this exhibition for Denver’s Month in Photography raise some interesting questions about what photography can be. From the earliest experiments and methods, to post-process inclusions, to developing entirely original printing methods, these artists are directly manipulating photographic ingredients to push boundaries and create innovative, far-reaching concepts that help to define the broad range of photography today.

This exhibit is juried and curated by Bobbi Walker of Walker Fine Art and Patti Hallock of the Society for Photographic Education.

ART!

MFA students at the University of Utah collaborate to create an interim show titled ART!

Last year as we sat discussing Grayson Perry's book Playing to the Gallery, the title was easily agreed upon as a playful way to represent our cohort and our journey to understanding our place in the art world. What better way to put an exclamation mark on our development through graduate school and the creative process which lead to the development of this show! 

Preservation Through the Landscape In-between

This piece represents the preservation of relationships through space, time and distance. Falling asleep requires a certain vulnerability and trust in the person next to us. Using the Great Salt Lake to represent a landscape of preservation, the figures overlap through space, even if they do not exist in the same place at the same time. The visual dreamscapes intend to represent the dream like in-between space we seek to connect to the ones we love. 

ART! is available to view at the Gittins Gallery in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Utah. 

January 9-27, 2017

Taft Nicholson Artist Residency

Self Portrait 

Self Portrait 

A mere five hour drive from Salt Lake City, two of my peers and I took a road trip to join some fellow artists from the University of Utah to spend a couple weeks at the Taft Nicholson Artist Residency in Centennial Valley, Montana. It was a positive and energizing experience that left me feeling rejuvenated and creatively fulfilled.

Real Life Benefits:

  • Fresh Montana air and an open landscape for creative thinking.
  • Unplug! No internet or cell service except for emergencies and a few phone calls to say goodnight to my one and only. 
  • Wide open spaces, trails, lakes, and mountains to explore and get inspired by.
  • Time! Day after day of endless creativity and good company.
  • Fellow students and friends to share new ideas with, and get feedback on works in progress.
  • Cyanotype alternative process. Just add sun and water! My two favorite things.
  • Early morning sunrise photoshoots - for when you can't sleep.
  • Birding! Owls, bald eagles, hawks, cranes, and more!
  • Daily group hikes - don't forget the bear spray!
  • Rooming with two awesome ladies- one made a bird coffin and the other speaks to the cows.
  • Delicious meals with the gang. Don't forget the potato donuts!
  • Evenings sharing works in progress, playing games and sharing stories.

Studio Magazine: the place where diligence and excellence become influence

This year I worked with artist Mark Brest van Kempen during the Warnock Residency at the University of Utah. Studio Magazine featured my photographic work in the article all about the residency experience.

Read more here:

http://issuu.com/uofufinearts/docs/studio__16/31?e=11380039/35758556

Working with Mark Brest van Kempen taught me to create works of art from new perspectives. We explored ideas such as "place as art" or using the documentation of movement or weather as the final representation of art or performance. Working with Mark was a once in a life-time experience. He is an incredible example of using place to inspire his many known works of art shown all over the world. 

At the end of the residency we exhibited our work in the Miri gallery in Salt Lake City. 
 

Top: Language of Light 36" x 144"Bottom: Celestial Transformation 36" x 144"

Top: Language of Light 36" x 144"

Bottom: Celestial Transformation 36" x 144"

University of Utah President's Gallery

In 1914, the first art gallery on the University of Utah campus opened in the Park Building. We are pleased to yet again exhibit art in that space. The original Park Gallery grew over the years to the standalone Utah Museum of Fine Arts with a permanent collection of 20,000 objects - ranging from antiquities and European masterworks to art of the American West and global contemporary art. The new special gallery is devoted to the artistic works of current students, faculty, and staff of the U.

President's Gallery Jury Members

Sandi Pershing, Dean, Continuing Education and Community Engagement, Assistant Vice President of Engagement

Tom Alder, Principal, Alderwood Fine Art

Nancy Boskoff, Arts Management

Gretchen Dietrich, Executive Director, Utah Museum of Fine Arts

David Meikle, Artist/Art Director, University Marketing & Communications 

Paul Stout, Artist/Chair, University of Utah's Department of Art and Art History

Karalee KucharStudent, Art MFAFree to Imagine, Free to Explorefine art Hahnemühle photo rag print2010, 18" x 24"

Karalee Kuchar

Student, Art MFA

Free to Imagine, Free to Explore

fine art Hahnemühle photo rag print

2010, 18" x 24"

February 24 to April 21, 2016

John R. Park Building, Third Floor

President's Circle, University of Utah

A DAY OF GAGA WITH OCTAVIO CAMPOS

A full day of workshops with Octavio Campos at the University of Utah Fine Arts is a good day.  Moving freely within the Gaga movement and incorporating sound and partnering made for a liberating and educational experience. 

With the final performance of the day adding the element of paint and canvas to the directed improv experience, relationships were found and intimate moments shared.

We are often challenged to push our boundaries and exist in spaces unfamiliar. The reward comes when we release our inhibitions and allow our movement to be free of judgment even within our own minds. As we collaborated with each other the experience deepened for each individual as we stretched our bodies and minds to new places.

Plates To Pixels: Intimate Alchemy - BEST OF SHOW

Intimate Alchemy

2016 ANNUAL JURIED EXHIBITION

Juried by Blue Mitchell

I would venture to warn against too great intimacy with artists as it is very seductive and a little dangerous.

–Queen Victoria

Theme: Intimate Alchemy

ADJECTIVE

  1. associated in close personal relations: an intimate friend.
  2. characterized by or involving warm friendship or a personally close or familiar association or feeling: an intimate greeting.
  3. very private; closely personal: one’s intimate affairs.
  4. characterized by or suggesting an atmosphere conducive to privacy or intimacy; warmly cozy: an intimate little café where we can relax and talk.
  5. (of an association, knowledge, understanding, etc.) arising from close personal connection or familiar experience.
  6. engaged in or characterized by sexual relations: too young to handle an intimate relationship.
  7. (of women’s clothing) worn next to the skin, under street or outer garments: a store that sells intimate apparel.
  8. detailed; deep: a more intimate analysis.
  9. showing a close union or combination of particles or elements: an intimate mixture.
  10. inmost; deep within.
  11. of, relating to, or characteristic of the inmost or essential nature; intrinsic: the intimate structure of an organism.
  12. of, relating to, or existing in the inmost depths of the mind: intimate beliefs.

NOUN

  1. an intimate friend or associate, especially a confidant.

Juror: Plates to Pixels Curator Blue Mitchell

(Born in Montana, US 1974) Blue Mitchell is an independent publisher, curator, educator, and photographer. Based in Portland, Oregon, he has been involved with many facets of the photographic arts. After Mitchell received his BFA from Oregon College of Art & Craft he started a publishing company (One Twelve Publishing) that focuses on hand-crafted photography. One Twelve’s photographic annual Diffusion is internationally distributed and respected. In 2015, One Twelve published their first monograph book Contact by large format photographer Jake Shivery. In addition to their printing endeavors, One Twelve also runs the online photographic gallery Plates to Pixels.

Source: http://platestopixels.com/blog/exhibitions...

PhotoPlace Gallery: In Celebration of Trees

Juror’s Statement:

My selections for In Celebration of Trees represent a very high diversity of tree species, settings and styles. Foremost among my criteria, each image reveals the centrality of tree-as-subject, supported by composition and legibility. Even the shortest narrative must roll from the tongue of the photo, to tell of the tree’s vitality, adaptability, steadfastness, or vulnerability and awkwardness.

In some images, the intellect and calculations of the photographer can be noticed, and in others a simple spontaneous elation from seeing light on leaves carries the message that this tree is important. These higher levels of Tree Consciousness speak well for all who participated. By nature, I tend to stay away from the infrared filtration and color enhancements, but I found the representations of apparent early photo techniques generally intriguing.

Trees are a challenging photographic subject. There are days when none appear worthy of exposure, but even so the search can be good mental conditioning for the right opportunity to appear.

Tom Zetterstrom

About the Juror:

Tom Zetterstrom’s Portraits of Trees represents the diversity and beauty of America’s forest resources. His 35-year dedication to trees imbues this endeavor with a unified artistic vision, sharpened by his very personal commitment to issues of local and global sustainability. Tom’s photographic career spans 45 years. His work as a freelance photojournalist in the ’70s and ’80s ranged from the New York Times Magazine and op-ed pages to A Day in the Life of America. His photographic eye has repeatedly responded to environmental issues over the decades. Zetterstrom’s documentary portfolios include White Russia, 1973 (in the Library of Congress archive); Faces of China, 1981(sponsored and toured by the Yale-China Association); and Man and Machine, 1973-1976. Photographs from Zettertrom’s various portfolios are represented in 40 museum collections throughout the United States.

Source: http://photoplacegallery.com/in-celebratio...

PhotoPlace Gallery: Stories and Secrets

Juror’s Statement:

Photographers most often use the camera to record the facts of the real world as seen at the moment of exposure. And the camera is a wonderful device for doing this. But when those facts are aligned to narratives or fantasies, the potential for deeper meaning is expanded. The photographs submitted for PhotoPlace Gallery’s exhibition, “Stories and Secrets,” offered an amazing variety of ways in which stories can be told with photographs. In some cases, texts were included as part of the images, but in most of the work the images themselves carried the narratives alone, sometimes in quite obvious ways, in other instances through enigmatic and mysterious suggestions.

As jurors we were faced with the difficult task of selecting work from a large body of exceptional work, and there were many deserving photographs that we wished we could have included. Alas, our job was to choose a finite number for exhibition and publication, and in the end we found ourselves most drawn to tantalizing images that told stories or whispered secrets in ways that made us want to know more. We gravitated toward images that were thoughtfully and skillfully conceived to tell subtle stories that hover on the edge of suggestiveness. Our congratulations to all of the artists who were selected, and our thanks to everyone for submitting such fascinating work.

Emma Powell and Kirsten Hoving

About the Jurors:

Mother and daughter Kirsten Hoving and Emma Powell have been working together for many years. Their most recent collaboration is Svala’s Saga, realized after extensive travel to Iceland together.

Emma Powell is an assistant professor of art at Colorado College. Powell graduated from the College of Wooster, and received her MFA in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work often examines photography’s history while incorporating historic processes and other devices within the imagery.
www.emmapowellphotography.com

Kirsten Hoving is a Charles A. Dana Professor of Art History at Middlebury College. In between writing books and articles and teaching courses about modern art and the history of photography at Middlebury College, she makes photographs. She is co-founder of PhotoPlace Gallery.
www.kirstenhovingphotographs.com

Source: http://photoplacegallery.com/stories-and-s...