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| Photographer pieces together fine art By Stacy Trevenon [ stacy@hmbreview.com ] Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 1:14 PM PDT Where some might see chaos, Barbara Kossy sees art. The Moss Beach photographer relies on artistic vision, love of color and the brain’s way of sorting cacophony into meaning when she pieces together scores of images, jigsaw-puzzle-like, to create her striking assemblages. “I can achieve things I could not achieve with just one conventional photograph,” she said. Currently her work is on exhibit through Sept. 12 at the East Bay Municipal Utility District administration building at 375 11th St. in Oakland. “I like to show in venues that aren’t traditional art venues,” she said. Some of Kossy’s subjects seem immediately art-friendly, like a garden, the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve or a moonset at sunrise. Others don’t: an urban intersection, Kossy’s front yard, or an alley. But she makes them all eye-catching and memorable. Finding a particular “space that interests me,” she shoots from 150 to 200 photographs in available light, around 360 degrees. She layers the images together with Photoshop, jockeying them together so that “the new image unfolds and reshapes space,” she wrote in her artist’s statement. The process “gives me a lot of control over the full body of the image,” she said. The effect teases viewers to use their creativity to make order emerge from chaos. “It’s the way the brain compensates to put things together,” she said. “It’s like when you look at any art, or literature. You’re looking at little squiggles, and they become meaning.” It’s like painting with photography. “To me, one picture isn’t enough,” she said thoughtfully. “One picture doesn’t always tell the story of what I see that’s special about a place.” But with digital, she continued, “you could put things together in ways you can’t with standard photography.” Her works, complete with archival framing, run in four sizes: small (25-30 inches wide,) medium (50 inches wide) and large (90 inches wide,) and range in price from $450 to $2,000. She explains in her statement that “optical distortion from a hand-held, slightly wide-angle lens” make it impossible to seamlessly join the pieces, but that’s part of the art. “There’s a certain tension in me between putting it together perfectly and letting it be what it is,” she said. Her artistic evolution is an assemblage in itself. Born in Chicago, Kossy enjoyed arts programs at her high school. Her arts studies included film, ceramics and photography, and in time she earned an MFA in filmmaking. She relocated to Berkeley in 1978 to produce a weekly cable-access TV show on the visual arts. She also ventured into print, reviewing avant-garde films for Artweek, writing general art reviews for The ExpressBay Guardian, and doing technical writing about travel, kayaking and photographing in Italy. She worked in public information for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and public relations for the Oakland Museum. She bought her first digital camera in 2002. “I never took a film photo since,” she said. She made photography her business: Besides printing and framing her assemblages, she puts time into promoting her art. She has exhibited through and beyond California, and that found their way into Bay Area collections. “It has to be fun,” she said of her work. “I have to think.” She also served as director of the San Mateo County Resource Conservation District, and volunteers on the county Weed Management Aerea Committee. Her next exhibit will be at the Caldwell Gallery in the Hall of Justice in Redwood City in November and December. |