Not just mountains and sheep anymore

ĪVisionsā show details growth of contemporary Colorado photography

By Ryan Bachman
The Metropolitan

Contemporary Colorado photography has certainly come a long way from the typical postcard shots of mountain landscapes and big-horned sheep.

Visions: Contemporary Colorado Photography, a statewide juried exhibition of 40 photo-based media artists, has examples of this progress.

The exhibit, at the Emmanuel Gallery through Dec. 21, is being sponsored by the Colorado Photographic Arts Center and the UCD Fine Arts Department.

Visions features a wide array of works, including five innovative prints by John Bonath. His pieces all have wooden settings and jointed mannequin arms, which seem to play intricate roles.

In In The Kingdom of Fate, marionette strings support a pterodactyl skeleton model. In another of his pieces, Death, The Final Blessing, one of these arms has been severed at the wrist by an ax.

Perhaps Bonathās most animated piece is An Eventful Life is a Book With Many Chapters, which centers on an old woman hugging a thick old book with her skinny little arms. She seems like something out of the childrenās fairy books with her bony frame and synthetic, wild green hair standing on end.

Another literary piece is Tower of Babble, a sepia-toned photo by Terry Maker. The tower is essentially a birdhouse fashioned out of the dictionary, Grimmsā Tales and other books winding around one another. It  makes a monument out of words, cheapening them into
a habitable fortress of nesting grasses and wooden pitchers.

Also poking fun at culture is John Davenportās Modern Icon #5. Davenport takes blue prints of American favorites such as a Barbie doll, a syringe, Marilyn Monroe, all topped off by a .45 caliber pistol.

Davenport really does a number on picking apart the Americaās pop culture of the last 50 years, which sadly has taken itself a little too seriously and occasionally needs to be knocked off its pedestal for a moment.

Davenport seems to realize a definite need for iconoclasm in art.
On a more sensual scale is Mark Sinkās Lani Above Shanon. This piece bears a serene emotion all its own. Four women make up the image, covered only in sheer white fabric and a thin fog, all  swimming and floating in air as if they were part of a ritual exotic dance.

The show was juried by Patrick Nagatani, an art professor at the University of New Mexico.

Emmanuel Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday, noon-4 p.m.