ART OF THE EVERYDAY
Pablo Picasso once observed, ?The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a passing shape, from a spider?s web.?
Photographer Michael E. Ellison and painter Mary Ellen McLaughlin, who join forces in the ?Everyday Sightings? show on display at Hospice Savannah Art Gallery, underscore Picasso?s observation, finding inspiration in familiar places, spaces and objects.
Ellison admits he once considered technical skill to be the key to mastering photography. For many years, he worked hard to learn everything he could about shutter speed, composition and other technical details, but he eventually realized something was missing.
?After a constant review of my images, I discovered that I felt better about the images that had a style and theme,? he said. ?Now, my focus has become the emotion behind what I am seeing and how to best translate that emotion so that it can be shared and experienced.?
In ?Everyday Sightings,? Ellison exhibits a lively series of color photographs celebrating Savannah?s off-the-beaten-path roadside attractions, vintage signage, traveling circuses, local fairs and bingo halls. He focuses his lens on places one might initially overlook, documenting familiar locations, including Bradley Lock & Key on State Street and the Greyhound Bus Station on Oglethorpe Avenue in fresh new ways.
?Photography is my method of chronicling my journey through the quirky world we all inhabit,? he explained. ?For me, the most appealing part of the medium of photography is translating that fleeting moment of time into a more permanent record.?
Some of Ellison?s strongest images, like ?Tilt-A-Ride? and ?Ferris Wheel,? use long exposure times to transform whirling fair rides into a blur of action. He immortalizes the Technicolor peaks of an itinerant big top tent and the kitschy contours of an old-time ice cream stand shaped like a giant vanilla cone with equal fervor, affection and fascination.
?I hope people will see that the images are individual parts of a greater ongoing project which documents the world as I see it, in all of its quirkiness,? he said. ?I hope they will say that they?ve seen that specific place or thing, but didn?t see it in the way that I presented it photographically.?
From the seat of his Harley-Davidson Road King Classic, Ellison excels at identifying roadside details that make the coastal area unique, from hand-painted signs to boarded-up fireworks stands.
?It gives me a better view of the world than riding in a car with the windows rolled up,? he enthused of his preferred mode of transportation.
Ellison encourages the audience to re-consider the world at large, while artist Mary Ellen McLaughlin invites the public to scrutinize everyday objects at close range. Her exquisite still lifes, meticulously crafted in watercolor and in oil paint, serve as meditative prescriptions for fast-paced 21st-century life.
?I feel that the magic of still life painting is that it can slow that pace and captivate the viewer?s attention for an instant,? she said. ?Within that frozen moment, the painting transforms an everyday object and allows the viewer to consider a new way of looking at it.?
McLaughlin, who has earned acclaim as a talented watercolor artist, has a strong mastery of light and shadow, adding depth and visual interest to relatively simple, conventional compositions.
In ?Garlic and Linen,? she bathes bulbs of garlic in radiant light. In ?Still Life With Mango,? she paints four mangoes in lush detail, strategically contrasting their blushing, color-drenched skin with striped black and white fabric rippling across a table.
?I am enthralled by the play of light on different objects,? she confessed. ?I infuse my subjects with drama by heightening the relationship of light and shadow. The process becomes a challenge for me to create an exciting layout that will draw the viewer?s eye to the center of interest and then move them throughout the entire piece. Thus, the still life is no longer still.?
IF YOU GO
What: ?Everyday Sightings: Photographs by Michael E. Ellison and Paintings by Mary Ellen McLaughlin?
When: 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, through Feb. 28
Where: Hospice Savannah Art Gallery, 1352 Eisenhower Drive.
Contact: 912-355-2289
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Michael E. Ellison purchased his first 35mm camera more than 40 years ago, after serving a combat tour in Vietnam with the Marines. He studied photography at Randolph Community College in Asheboro, N.C., and eventually completed a B.B.A. at Montreat College in Montreat, N.C. He has exhibited his photography locally and in juried exhibits across the United States. His work is part of the permanent collection at Telfair Museums in Savannah.
Mary Ellen McLaughlin, a native of Syracuse, N.Y., studied Fine Art at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, N.Y., and Fine Art and Graphic Arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. After a successful career as a graphic artist in New York, she relocated to Savannah, where she pursued her passion for painting. McLaughlin is a member of the Southern Watercolor Society and has been featured in the Georgia Watercolor Society?s national exhibitions.
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