September Issue 2001
Craven Allen Gallery in Durham, NC, Features Photography of Doug Deneen
Whispering
Frenzy, an exhibition of new cibachrome
photographs by Doug Deneen, opens at Craven Allen Gallery in Durham,
NC, Sept. 8 and continues through Oct. 27, 2001.
Linda Shearer, director of the Williams College Museum of Art, responded to the mysterious allure of his work by writing... "Deneen's lush color still lifes, with a darkness lurking just under the surface, conjure for me a feeling of the seemingly contradictory worlds of Tennessee Williams and high-gloss advertising."
Triangle art lovers became familiar with the large, outrageously colorful photographs and kaleidoscopic video installations award winning artist Deneen exhibited in the '90s. Critics referred to his fantastical creations featuring ordinary objects as being "like stage sets for an underground theater in an alternate reality." Now, after four years, Deneen returns to Craven Allen Gallery with new work revealing "alternate realities" of a very different sort.
In his show titled Whispering Frenzy, the photographer continues to focus on the most humble of subjects to present reminders of how extraordinary the ordinary can be. However, this time, Deneen doesn't lure viewers into scenes of his own creation. Instead, he leads a journey of discovery through familiar commonplace settings, drawing attention to visual surprises we often fail to notice and beauty all too often overlooked.
Recipient of several regional NEA and Arts Council grants, Deneen has won over a dozen top prizes in juried competitions and been included in exhibitions at the North Carolina Museum of Art and the Fayetteville Museum of Art. His work hangs in hundreds of private homes, offices and corporate collections throughout the country.
After graduating from Duke in 1982, Deneen remained in Durham until 1996 and in many ways still considers it "home". He now lives in Manhattan, where in addition to his photography, he's a freelance television producer and creative services consultant for various stations and cable networks such as WABC, HGTV, MSNBC and the Food Network.
Deneen offers the following statement about the new works in the exhibition, Whispering Frenzy.
"Out of the studio.
Into the woods.
On the way to the beach.
Or down a moonlit street.
No lamps.
No setups.
Just straight shooting under existing light.
Resisting the urge to bully chaos into order.
Giving up the will to control.
Leaving more to chance.
Making mistakes... some lucky.
A process less like collage... more like... hmm, photography.
Second nature to most photographers.
Radical for me.
Just look. Don't touch.
Was arranging ordinary objects to show them
in a different light.
Now hunting to capture beauty where we don't often look for it.
Still searching for surprises beyond the obvious..
visual thrills hidden in commonplace settings.
A garden in winter.., brown, gray... neglected...
reveals a spectrum of color when venturing in.
Walking away from a picture perfect ocean sunset...
a riot of hues in a ditch past the dunes.
Turning my back on a spectacular river view...
what goes unnoticed in the field over there?
Nothing grand... or shocking...
blades of grass, so humble...
whispering in a frenzy...
anything but mundane.
There's nothing mundane about the ordinary..,
if you really look.
The rewards...
But I don't try to present the mundane... as it is...I try to show it at its best.
I'm still trying to discover beauty in the unexpected.
While creating my still life photographs and experimental video work, I play out struggles between chance and the will to control. I don't begin with preconceived notions. The process is less cerebral, more primal, as I try to find beauty in the unexpected and bully chaos into order. While stories or narratives may arise from the finished work, for me, everything begins and eventually comes back to line, texture, form, color."
For more information check our NC Commercial Gallery listings or call the gallery at 919/286-4837.
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