Photographs by Kimberly Jensen, Lynn Mayekawa and Erin Williamson
June 3 – October 5, 2003

This exhibition features new work by three emerging Honolulu photographers. The works of these three artists incorporate alternative photographic processes such as hand-applied emulsion, photogram techniques and solarization.

In Kimberly Jensen’s series of color photograms, this “self-taught balloon artist” uses balloon animals and a loosely controlled photography technique to create fun, whimsical images reminiscent of childhood birthday party magicians. The three-dimensional balloon forms are placed onto photo paper in the total darkness of a color lab and exposed for a period of time. The resulting images balance abstract form, unexpected color and free form composition. Each image is an original work and that cannot be duplicated.

Lynn Mayekawa’s photographs depict the ground outside her grandfather’s house. On the ground, she places a red string that denotes a section of the original tax key map. The string is evident in the dirt, but the viewer must look carefully to discover it. In 1972, the non-consensual sale of a family home caused Lynn’s grandfather to renounce his family ties. Lynn works with concepts of home, family and boundaries (constructed and broken) in her photographs, which convey a feeling of absence, of searching for a sense of belonging that once existed and somehow may be conjured once again.

Erin Williamson exhibits photographs taken in Cabela’s in Kansas City, a national chain of sporting goods stores. The artist states: “In a day and age when many safari hunting excursions have turned from guns to cameras, Cabela’s functions as the last bastion for the good-ol’-boy predator. This series examines that idea by turning the predatory gaze away from the animal hunted and toward the human hunter…. It also highlights the camera as an aggressive instrument, one that can empower or deflate, depending on how it is wielded.” Williamson is also interested in how the store atmosphere – evidenced by light fixtures, fake trees and shopping carts – reveals that the animals are part of a diorama…to “inspire others to consume and kill.”