A Study in Contrasts juxtaposes the works of photographer Barry Lobdell and sculptor Russell Serrianne. In this collaborative exhibition one can see how shape, form and texture work to convey similar ideas through disparate media. Lobdell’s photographic work is centered on sculptural structures found in nature, while Serrianne’s delicately constructed, abstract vine sculptures convey that same sense of natural world through composition and design. Taken together visually the relationships between the two art forms become more and more evident, offering both contrast and similarity.
Barry Lobdell
Barry Lobdell is a photographer who lives in Saranac Lake, NY. He is a member of the Adirondack Artists Guild in Saranac Lake, where his photographs are regularly on display in the Guild’s gallery and on their website, www.adirondackartistsguild.com. He also has a personal website, www.barrylobdellphotography.com
His artistic philosophy is summed up in the following statement:
The technical circumstances of my photography have changed over the years but the objective remains the same, to find the heart of what I see and present it to others using the best tools available. My subject matter is often the natural landscape, particularly the Adirondack Mountain region of northern New York, where I make my home. I am also intrigued by the cultural landscape, in which man and his creations become my subjects.
His photography has won acclaim on the local, regional and national stages. Since 2003, his work has been shown at the Gallery of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, FL, the Housatonic Museum in Bridgeport, CT, the Cambridge Art Association in Cambridge, MA, View in Old Forge, NY, the Southern Vermont Arts Center in Manchester, VT, the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalacian State University in Boone, NC, the Boston Athenaeum in Boston, MA, the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, NY, the Frederick Remington Museum of Art in Ogdensburg, NY, ForArtsake Gallery in Malone, NY, the Shirt Factory Gallery in Glens Falls, NY and the Photo Place Gallery in Middlebury, VT.
His photography has often been honored with prizes in competitions. He was the first recipient of the Barbara Johnson Parnass Art in Public Spaces Program Prize in Saranac Lake in 2003. In the same year, he won the Best in Show/Purchase Prize in the North Country Regional Juried Art Show at the Gibson Gallery in Potsdam, NY. In 2008 his work took the Best in Show Prize in Photosho at Keene Valley, NY. He won First Prize for Photography in the 2010 Adirondack Life Juried Exhibition at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts, a competition in which he won Second Prize in 2003 and the Best in Show award in 1997. In 2014, he won the Best in Show Prize in the NorthWind Fine Arts Gallery's Regional Juried Show.
Russell Serrianne
I am captivated by the energized line naturally found in the strength and determination of the vine tendril. I use the vine tendril as my drawing tool, as my mark, as three dimensional line. My process centers around the selection of individual tendrils, each having a complex simplicity… which once interwoven create a fluid shape, a composition.
I seek to create movement, fluidity, and variations in density stemming from the thickness of each tendril and its placement within the whole. I alter the appearance of the tendril’s thin bark with burnishing techniques and coatings of clear shellac – ‘freezing’ the tendril’s line before the organic process of decay would return it to part of the forest floor. In making these works I am interested in creating a visual interplay with what is natural and when applied out of context creates pause for re-examination.
Russell lives in Glens Falls, NY where he has maintained his studio at the Shirt Factory since 2006. Raised in Niagara Falls, Russell attended the New School of Art in Toronto, Ontario with a concentration in drawing and screen process printing. He then studied printmaking at the Center for Music Drama and Art in Lake Placid, and lithography at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.
Solo exhibitions include the Salem Art Works in Salem, NY and Castleton College, Castleton, Vermont. Invitational and juried exhibitions include the Artists of the Mohawk Hudson Region 2016, the Lake George Arts Project, Albany Center Gallery, the Laffer Gallery, Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, and the Lake Placid Center for the Arts.
His work is included in the collection of the Albany Institute of History and Art and private collections.
For more on Russell and his work, visit his website here.
