Kevin O’Connell, Lucas Foglia, William Lamson

Robischon Gallery is pleased to present three concurrent solo exhibitions featuring the photographic work of Colorado artist Kevin O’Connell and California artist Lucas Foglia, along with video and works on paper by New York artist William Lamson. With each of the distinctive artists on view, the attitude behind the camera is first and foremost driven by an innate sense of curiosity. Whether it is to discover the territory which psychologically unites the prehistoric oceanic Western plains with the distant horizon on a West coast sea or as an expression of the deep currents between humankind and nature, each artist offers their unique connections between the view outside and the specific lens through which it is seen.



Kevin O’Connell: “Memories of Water”

In his fourth, solo Robischon Gallery exhibition, highly-regarded artist Kevin O’Connell creates large and small-scale photographs in his new “Memories of Water” series. Intended to convey an essential visual journey from the high and arid open plains of Colorado to the vast shoreline of the Pacific Northwest coast, O’Connell’s reference began with the topics of drought and land use. As the photographic series evolved, the artist followed a more poetic path – the search for water became a kind of metaphor for a search for meaning. Capturing compelling images of water, as reflections of a timeless quest, O’Connell expresses a contemplative, deeply personal connection while presenting a universal concern: the growing scarcity of water. Long-recognized for his spare and quiet vistas of the eastern plains of Colorado and distinctive portraits of energy structures in those same open places, O’Connell’s sensitive considerations not only illustrate the potentially dire water issues of the West, but also exalt in the pure beauty of the surrounding land.

Poignantly moved by the vastness of the open plains as in earlier series, O’Connell notes the similarity of feeling invoked by miles of unpopulated grassland and the limitless expanse of ocean waters. The artist visually unites these seemingly disparate worlds though the continuity of the horizon and the knowledge that the open plains used to exist as the great Western Interior Seaway. The vanishing of the great inland sea acknowledges the cyclical nature of the land over time and suggests a similar condition in humanity’s trajectory – one which is also intrinsically bound to the presence of water. To creatively convey the layered complexity of his subject, O’Connell’s “Memories of Water” series resides firmly in the poetic. Substantially due to the artists own vocabulary and his desire to communicate a kind of immeasurable quietude, his collaboration with New York poet Jules Gibbs played a role in his stance. Author of Bliss Crisis and Bulk of the Mailable Universe, Gibbs offered her poetic insights and upon seeing the artist’s images, provided the elegiac titles to further anchor meaning within O’Connell’s sweeping imagery. In his own words, O’Connell writes, “When on the plains, it is difficult to look down – one’s eyes tend to focus on the horizon, as if it is the only thing defining you and your place in the world. The experience must be similar to being on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Time passes slowly, then suddenly punctuated by only the changes in the atmosphere and the amount of dust or salt spray on your neck. You move, yet everything seems to remain the same.”

Kevin O’Connell is a graduate of Purdue University and the University of Denver. His work is included in the permanent collections of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Denver Art Museum, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brigham Young University Museum of Art and Ross Art Museum and Wesleyan University in addition to many corporate and private collections. He has twice been a Ucross Fellowship recipient and his work is frequently shown including exhibitions at the Aspen Art Museum, Nicolaysen Art Museum, Wyoming, Arvada Center and in both solo and group shows at Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver.



William Lamson: “Automatic”

Recognized New York artist William Lamson presents “Automatic,” a three-part video and drawing project in which the forces of the wind and ocean were used to power rudimentary drawing machines. The three contraptions employ a windmill, a kite and plastic bottles to form basic, yet ingenious systems, which once in motion, continue to operate without involvement. In addition to two distinct drawings, produced in concert with the elements, a video documents the uncanny movement of the apparatuses at work and their relationship to their remote locales. “Automatic” exposes the tension between the agency of an artist to create and control the parameters of each device, and the unpredictable elemental forces that animate them.

Distinguished by his numerous innovative durational projects, Lamson’s work fearlessly and consistently engages with nature through invention, fortitude and at times a strong sense of the absurd. When not reliant on his own physical strength and abilities to perform “Actions” within an environment, a specific “set up” or cunning device will often be created – affording the artist a way to specifically interact with nature over longer periods of time. As an example of the series, a specially-designed yet unseen precarious platform allowed Lamson to appear to float on the surface of various rivers after mastering the required balance through perseverance. In one of the artist’s most notable works, A Line Describing the Sun, Lamson used a hand-crafted vehicle with a Fresnel lens to fuse a hemispherical arc of glass onto a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert. The documenting of the process resulted in a beautifully composed and awe-inspiring universal video work – man and his essential machine, which visually expressed the human desire to see and harness an immeasurable force. With varying aspects of Lamson’s artful endeavors made manifest – part earthwork, part performance and subsequent video, the earthly and solar forces Lamson uniquely explores are made evident through the artist’s own sense of curiosity, methodical mark-marking and exuberant science.

The most-recent recipient of a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, William Lamson has an MFA from Bard College and a BA from Dartmouth College. His work has been shown widely throughout the US and Europe including the Brooklyn Museum, MOMA PS1, Kunsthalle Erfut, Moscow Biennial, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver and many others. He has created site-specific installations for the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Storm King Art Center and the Indianapolis Museum of Art and his work is in permanent museum collections including Brooklyn Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and numerous private collections. A MacDowell Fellow, he has also received honors from Shifting Foundation and the Experimental Television Center. Lamson is currently working in Chile’s Atacama Desert on his next video.



Lucas Foglia: “Frontcountry”

In his first Robischon Gallery solo exhibition, artist Lucas Foglia presents “Frontcountry,” his latest series following the successful exhibitions of “A Natural Order” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver and other venues in Europe and the US. This previous series, “A Natural Order,” offered intimate views of select, rural, off-the-grid communities in the Southeastern U.S. These earlier Foglia portraits look into the lives of individuals who appear to reject the modern world while embracing a world far more natural. The artist’s manner and unique commitment allowed him entrance and a rare position within their isolated communes to capture glimpses of their lives through a non-judgmental lens.

With equal intent, the exhibited series, “Frontcountry,” was pursued and produced over a series of seven years. Between 2006 and 2013, the artist traveled throughout rural Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Wyoming – some of the least populated regions in the United States – where he was also welcomed to illuminate a true view of the land and those who reside there. Different in approach than with past subjects, the individuals of “Frontcountry,” while connected to the land, were not averse to incorporating aspects of contemporary society. Reflecting this fact, Foglia’s latest series, is a photographic account of people living in the midst of the industrial boom in mining and energy development that is transforming the modern American West. Some residents of these geographically spectacular regions still make their living on the land farming and ranching – some commercially, some simply living close to earth – while other pivotal parts of the landscape have been given over to massive extraction operations such as mining or oil and gas development. Foglia withholds his opinion within the compositions regarding what might be the best use of the land by presenting complex images such as a vast, snow-dusted excavation site in Open Pit, Newmont Mining Corporation, Carlin, Nevada which appears ordered and serene through his lens. Other images feature terrain drastically altered by man, bringing into focus the enormity of a pit mine as on par with the anticipated destruction of nature’s wrath shown in George Chasing Wildfires, Eureka, Nevada. These views stand in seemingly stark contrast to Moving Cattle to Spring Pasture, Boulder, Wyoming where a rancher in a pick-up moves his cattle up valley; cows lined on each side of the road, one plaintive creature quizzically inquiring toward the artist. “Frontcountry” makes clear the co-existence of diverse interests, yet invokes numerous questions about just what the land can ultimately sustain or if it is large enough for all to comfortably coexist. In an effort to find the long view, Foglia’s lens persistently locates the required amount of light in order to pursue both question and answer equally.

Lucas Foglia has an MFA from Yale University and a BA from Brown University. His photographs are in permanent museum collections in the Denver Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Victoria & Albert Museum, the Museum of Modern Art Library and the Newport Art Museum, among others. The recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, his most recent honor was an Individual Photographer’s Fellowship from the Aaron Siskind Foundation. Foglia’s work has been widely exhibited in the United States and Europe including, London, Rotterdam, Paris and Belfast and will be seen in upcoming exhibitions in Flanders, Munich and other cities next year. Both of the artist’s photographic series, “A Natural Order” and “Frontcountry” have eponymous monographs that have been received with international critical acclaim.