Lynn Geesaman – Gardens: Aesthetic Intent
April 6th - June 8th, 2019
“My subjects are found in European gardens, parks, and arboreal landscapes, where nature is shaped and controlled by aesthetic intent. I look for order, variously imposed, in marginally natural settings, for perspectives concealed within the obvious design. The composition of my photographs favors a representation that is both abstract and depictive, wherein strong geometries overlay detail. My interest lies in a transformative processs which uses photography to idealize rather than to document. These photographs are about culturally known landscapes, looked at in a particular way.”
Lynn Geesaman
Preface, POETICS OF PLACE, Umbrage/Aperture 1998
It is not often that Scheinbaum & Russek has the opportunity to exhibit the work of an artist who has revived an historical approach to our photographic medium and has pushed that approach even further than her predecessors to create beautiful and dynamic imagery.
“My subjects are found in European gardens, parks, and arboreal landscapes, where nature is shaped and controlled by aesthetic intent. I look for order, variously imposed, in marginally natural settings, for perspectives concealed within the obvious design. The composition of my photographs favors a representation that is both abstract and depictive, wherein strong geometries overlay detail. My interest lies in a transformative processs which uses photography to idealize rather than to document. These photographs are about culturally known landscapes, looked at in a particular way.”
Lynn Geesaman
Preface, POETICS OF PLACE, Umbrage/Aperture 1998
At the turn of the 20th Century photography was still in the midst of defending itself as an art form. A major advance in this discussion was the formation of a group of like-minded photographers led by Alfred Stieglitz. Stieglitz was disappointed with the status of photography in the United States compared with its elevation throughout Europe. This group, which Stieglitz amassed, who were bound together in the belief that photography is a distinct art form, became known as the Photo-Secession. In their initial manifesto, drafted by Alfred Stieglitz, he wrote,
“Its aim is loosely to hold together those Americans devoted to Pictorial photography in their endeavor to compel its recognition, not as the handmaiden of Art, but as a distinctive medium of individual expression.”
Stieglitz’s mention of Pictorial photography was the groups approach to image making. The pictorial effect, which is the softening of sharp lines, and particularly the suppression of details to obtain an impression, was patterned after the styles of painting, drawing and printmaking of the artists who adhered to the tenets of the Barbizon School. The Pictorial Movement felt to fully experience nature, one must look rather than copy and feel rather than analyze. This philosophy was adopted by many of the Photo-Secessionists.
Lynn Geesaman, a contemporary photographer, has re-introduced the style and techniques of the pioneering 19th and 20th century Pictorial photographers. Focusing on gardens and arboretums throughout Europe and America, Geesaman’s photographs are impeccably composed compositions, which interpret and feel the landscape rather than copy or document it. They open our eyes and mind to a new way of understanding the landscape and change the way we will view it forever more.
Lynn Geesaman’s Artistic Intent is transformative in ways that her predecessors in the Photo-Secession would have applauded. Surely she would have been invited to join them!