J. Fredric May, Apparition: Postcards from Eye See You
2017 Critical Mass Solo Exhibition Award in collaboration with Photolucida

April 5–29, 2018
First Thursday Opening Reception, April 5, 6:00–9:00 PM
Artist Talk: Saturday, April 7, 3:00 PM

Blue Sky Gallery
122 NW 8th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97209 USA
503-225-0210
Tuesday – Sunday, 12 – 5 pm
First Thursday 6 – 9 pm
bluesky@blueskygallery.org
http://www.blueskygallery.org/

In 2012 J. Fredric May experienced a major stroke, causing him to lose 46% of his vision. This rendered him legally blind and subject to vivid visual hallucinations. This life event dramatically changed his artistic vision, opening up an entirely new visual style as he began to illustrate how his brain now processes information.

May’s photographs are a hybrid of analog and digital processes that are the result of extensive experimentation. He begins with vintage portraits that he scans and puts through data corruption software. He then creates layered composites and prints these as cyanotypes, which he bleaches and tones with a mixture of photo chemicals and tea. He then digitizes the altered cyanotypes and creates an archival pigment print of each enigmatic portrait.

Blue Sky is pleased to present Apparition as the 2017 Critical Mass Solo Exhibition Award in collaboration with Photolucida.

A graduate of Brooks Institute, J. Fredric May received his B.S. in Commercial/Color Technology and was accepted into the prestigious Eddie Adams Workshop in 1989. He made his living as a photojournalist and commercial photographer traveling all over the world, telling visual stories with a signature style of bold color and confrontational composition. He won numerous state and regional honors. As a filmmaker, May directed more than 50 corporate and industrial films and helped raise more than 7 million dollars for nonprofit organizations. He has won Telly and Cine Awards for his creative film work and national awards for his corporate and nonprofit clients.