Past and Future:
Grand Opening Exhibition, Nov - Dec, 2006
Timbre/Timber (Kessler/Walker): Jan 2007
Michael Kessler at the Harlow Gallery, Hallowell: REception, Feb 10, 2007

Mary Woodman • New Photographs
Artist Reception: February 2 (First Friday Art Walk) 5 - 8 PM
Exhibition: February 1 – March 1, 2007

Daniel Kany Gallery is pleased to present the photographs of Mary Woodman, whose work won a 2007 B&W Magazine Merit Award. The Kennebunkport artist’s photos will be shown along with works by gallery glass artists.

Woodman’s digital photographs are based in observation, but they achieve a painterly quality that rivals the density of charcoal in their final forms. Woodman explains she is driven to observe the world around her by the sheer beauty of local, natural forms. Within and among these forms, she is drawn to the rhythms of nature and uses these as her cue for finalizing any image. “Observation,” she explains, “is just the beginning of the photographer’s job. We sometimes like to pretend that photographers don’t intervene in the image, but they always do by cropping, controlling contrast, dodging, burning, length of exposure, and so on. I began shooting black and white film and working with a master printer to help me get my desired results. So the step to digital work was very natural. My photos are presented as ends in themselves: they have no specific agenda and need no explanation. I think the viewer’s relationship to them should be complete, and this is why I also focus on scale, printing, framing and so on.”

Woodman’s recent award-winning image, Eggs in a Nest, presents a seemingly simple and well-known form and presents its rhythms, complexities and dualities with a sharply interested eye. The nest glows with light from within, mirroring the yolk or life inside the eggs. The two eggs themselves present the pairing of thoughts: siblings, inside/outside, parents, figure/ground and the balance of rhythm with time. The deep tonality of printing and sharpness of the image make a very elegant and complete first impression, but the sensation of completeness very quickly gives way to visual and rhythmic play.

Glass Art at Daniel Kany Gallery:
Introducing Janusz Pozniak & Doug Randall

Through the end of Spring 2007, the Daniel Kany Gallery—which opened on November 24, 2006—will continue to introduce artists from its roster: February’s featured glass artists are Janusz Pozniak and Doug Randall.

Doug Randall, who works in the “other” Portland, is a master of fused and slumped glass. His works feature saturated colors and a graphic intelligence that belies his sensibilities for painting and design. The installation will feature a piece from Randall’s newest series—an attenuated boat form made of panels of highly contrasting and colorful glass.

Janusz Pozniak is well known internationally for both for his glassblowing and design skills. Pozniak, who was born and educated in England, now works in Seattle. Over the years, he has won several scholarships to the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine: one of the preeminent centers for glassblowing in the world. “I juried a glass exhibition in Seattle that had a production design award this past summer,“ explains Daniel Kany, “and I say with confidence that I think Pozniak is the best designer of production glass working in the United States. He just also happens to be one of the best blowers as well.”