Found Portrait, 2003 Chlorophyll print and resin, 13 x 11 inches Binh Danh human/nature Haines Gallery is very excited to introduce Binh Danh in his debut solo gallery exhibition. Locally respected for his experimentation with and contribution to alternative photography, Danh has invented a technique for printing found photographs (digitally rendered into negatives) on the surface of leaves using a photosynthetic process. The leaves, still living, are pressed between glass plates with the negative and exposed to sunlight anywhere from a week to several months. This exhibition presents the resulting objects from this elaborate and unique process, coined "chlorophyll prints" by the artist, focusing on imagery from the American-Vietnam War and Cambodia's "killing fields". The fragile works are encapsulated and made permanent through casting them in solid blocks of resin. Combining the diverse disciplines of art, history and science Danh exhaustively researches the subject matter he draws from - combing through library archives, newspapers and military records. Much of Danh's research has explored his own personal history and has become a way of visually and physically recollecting his family's history and honoring their collective memory. These concepts for Danh, however, are easily applicable to other cultures that immigrated to America - the stories and disconnectedness of the second-generation. The scarring effect of war on the landscape is also strongly reflected in this work. As Danh has stated: "The war is still such a part of the landscape, …War doesn't go away. It lives on and becomes part of the natural setting; all of these materials have a memory to them. …The images of war are part of the leaves, and live inside and outside of them. The leaves express the continuum of war. Since matter is neither destroyed, but only transformed, the remnants of the Vietnam and American War lives on forever." Binh Danh was born in Vietnam in 1977, immigrating to the United States when he was still an infant. He received his BFA in Photography from San Jose State University and just recently completed his MFA at Stanford University. Danh's work has already experienced considerable notice with exhibitions at the Oakland Museum of Art, the Triton Museum of Art and SFCamerawork. Exhibition: September 9 - October 30, 2004 Gallery Hours: Tue-Fri 10:30am - 5:30pm, Sat 10:30am - 5:00pm Haines Gallery also stays open until 7:30pm on the first Thursday of every month Haines Gallery 49 Geary Street, Suite 540 USA-San Francisco, CA 94108 Telephone +1 415 397-8114 Fax +1 415 397-8115 Email info@hainesgallery.com www.hainesgallery.com |
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