Rich Bergeman, Hilda Champion, Stone Peng,  Spotlight on Photography

Feb. 5 – March 1, 2019
Reception: Feb. 8, 2019, 5-8pm

Emerald Art Center
500 Main St.
Springfield, Oregon 97477
Tue – Sat 11am-4pm
541-726-8595
https://www.emeraldartcenter.org

Three award recipients from the EAC’s 2018 Photography at the Emerald Exhibition will be showcased in February’s “Spotlight on Photography” show at the EAC—Rich Bergeman of Corvallis; Hilda Champion of Naples, Florida; and Stone Peng of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

A gallery talk will be held with Rich Bergeman as featured speaker on Sunday Feb. 24 at 1pm, with potluck to follow.

Bergeman will be showing recent black-and-white infrared work, all made within the past year. A native of Ohio and an Oregonian since 1976, Bergeman has been making pictures for over 30 years with all manner of cameras and processes—from silver to platinum and Polaroid to pinhole. About three years ago he turned his energies to exploring the infrared spectrum, photographing landscapes, seascapes and the remnants of forgotten histories around the Pacific Northwest.

Champion is a German/American fine art photographer born in 1959 near Munich, and has been living in Naples, FL, since 2001. Her aspiration in photography is less about showing the world as it is, but rather to release the poetry of the ordinary and help people see the un-seen. She tries to show an abstraction of what she sees, free of distractions, and describes her images as “based on a true fantasy.”

Peng was born in Taiwan and has been living in Michigan for over 30 years. He took up photography in the early 1980s and is largely self-taught. Describing his work as “Zen Photography,” he explains: “Every landscape has its own life and meaning, depending on the viewer’s mood. I try to catch that emotional feeling at specific moments in landscapes, using the Chinese philosophy of life and the aesthetic principles ‘less is more’ and ’empty is full’ in creating my images.”