Phenomenon

More often than not photographs are called upon to illustrate mere information. Descriptive or factual, the documentary use of the medium dominates. On occasion however, one might stumble upon an image that manifests differently. Either by circumstance or through an artist’s intervention, the result brings forth a range of senses from wonder to the sublime.

Culled from their larger context, brought together and hung with dissimilar works, each of the prints nonetheless remain exceptional. And like the process of sublimation (where an elemental substance leapfrogs from one state to another) these images too make a bypass, skipping the grounding of intellect by manifesting phenomena directly as spirit or something simply marvelous.

Guest curator Thom Sempere has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University and is currently Executive Director of PhotoAlliance.