"Flesh and Vapor" Exhibition, Robert Asman

"Asman has turned his photographs into paintings, in which his swirls and puddles of selenium, bleach, tea, and sepia are transformed into colors that conjure the sublime."- Edith Newhall, Philadelphia Enquirer

Join us for the Opening Reception with Robert Asman, April 12, of his "Flesh and Vapor" exhibition which will run from April 9 to May 12, 2013. 

In "Flesh and Vapor", Asman brings together two themes, clouds/vapor and body/flesh, into a shared construct in which the textures, shape and sensuality of the human form are reflected in, and in turn reflected by, the ethereal and evanescent nature of the cloud.

This exhibit comes at an important time as the use of traditional photographic darkroom processes are undergoing a renaissance by artists partly in response to the ubiquity and impact of digital technology. As a master innovator in the photographic darkroom, Asman is becoming increasingly viewed as one of this country's most important contemporary photographers and a leader in this new movement. 

For most of the last thirty-five years, Robert Asman has been devoted to investigating and stretching the conceptual and technical boundaries of silver prints. As an alchemist of the dark room, Asman's unique, one-of-a-kind photographic monoprint creations come to form in the darkroom through the boundless manipulation of paper negatives and chemicals. His explorations and technique bind human form, urbanism and nature. Asman approaches art making as a transformative process, in which he mines the physical properties of his materials to create a work on paper in which process and image are one. 

Asman has received multiple honors throughout his career, such as a Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and at Galerie Paviot in Paris. Asman's work can also be found in numerous permanent collections, including The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.

An exhibition catalogue will be available at the Opening and updates and videos for this extraordinary and timely exhibition will be posted on this website, www.artetudegallery.com, and our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/artetudegallery.  "Flesh and Vapor" will be exhibited at Artetude Gallery from April 10 - May 12, 2013. Please feel free to contact us directly at director@artetudegallery.com or 828-252-1466