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Written by John Eric Hawkins
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A General History
of
Work Represented
The photographic prints shown at this gallery are dated from early 1985 up to and
including the present date. This represents twenty years of consuming work. A large
number of prints where done in series but the galleries will show work that is not
chronological but rather unified by common theme.
I will attempt to answer some questions by giving a general chronology and
progression of work by time and location. |
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- 1985 & 1986
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- Living in Santa Cruz, California, I spent most of these two years working
along the coast of central California, in the Sierra Nevada, and in the
Mojave Desert regions. I spent time on the logistics of hiking with the 8x10
view camera. Work solidified and the quest of WHY? instead of just how I
photograph began.
- 1987
- Spring and Fall I spent extended periods of time in Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and the
Eastern Sierra Nevada.
- 1988
- Spring - Joshua Tree National Monument, Death Valley
- Fall - Anasazi Ruins and back to the California desserts
- 1989
- I moved to Northern Indiana and started work on limestone block forms.
- 1990
- Working in the ice of winter and the darker deciduous forests of summer
presents new environment to my meditative state and further enrich my vision
of a universal theme throughout nature.
- 1991
- The Niagara Escarpment, as it reaches into Ontario, brings a new wash of
imagery. I begin exploring “negative versus positive” space
relationships. In the next few years I begin to understand that the subject matter is of no more visual importance than the commonality that comes in tonal and surface relationships seen at its strongest arrangement which is pure composition.
- 1992
- Spring - Spring in the Smokey Mountains and back up to Canada.
- Fall - The coast of Maine.
- Winter - Start of ice form series that entails working in the same
frozen stream one day each year. I continue this through 2002.
- 1993
- Back out to the Southwest working on architectural forms, closed canyon
and open space.
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- 1994
- Joshua Tree, Death Valley, Mono Lake, and then back to Maine
- 1995
- More time spent in the Owens Valley and back to limestone.
- 1996
- Extensive journey throughout the Southwest
- 1997
- Indiana, Southern Ohio, California Desserts
- 1998
- Spring - The Coast of California, a great time of rediscovery
- Fall - Wyoming and Yellowstone
- 1999
- Spring - Back to the central coast of California to complete ideas started the year before.
- Fall - The High Sierra and the Owens Valley on a series entitled Last Light.
- Opened the JOHN ERIC HAWKINS GALLERY of PHOTOGRAPHIC ART
- 2000
- Spring - New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Colorado. I go back into the slot canyons
for the first time since 1993. I had stopped working the slots because there was
a glut of work being done and I wasn’t interested in more of the same. I now was
seeing the work as figurative in nature and had a clear vision of a series of
beautiful images that would accompany the nude figures I had started on.
The year before I had begun working with an 11x14 Deardorff field camera
and started a series of nude figure images. This work began as the female nude
representing the landscape. The next year I did a series of images that dealt
with unwanted social pressures that we yield to. The series was manifested by
the nude body in conjunction with skulls.
- Fall - More work in the slot canyons and Southern Utah, my mind and the spirit of the land unified for an extraordinary receptiveness of light and form.
- 2001
- Spring - Southern Arizona and up into the Owens Valley.
[That summer and then the winter I spent preparing to do one year of work on just one topic.]
I started the year driving out to California doing one or two images a day. When I got back to Indiana I was ready to start the Limestone Figure series. As soon as the Quarries dried out from the snow and rain, I spent the rest of the year working with nothing but the 11x14 camera and with three different models. The series is very unique and resulted in forty plus images.
- 2002
- THE YEAR OF THE BOOK
- Working with David Gardner at Gardner Lithograph, a folio of my work is presented in “The Ancient Shape of Man”. Combined with poetry, 85 images were reproduced in a large (13x13 inch) book that remains faithful to my original print intent.
- 2003
- An amazing series of nude images done in the High Sierra depicting the passage from waking state to dream state, bringing the Spirit of our natural world and the Spirit that we recognize as our Self to a combined reality.
- 2004
- Water movement and new inspiration.
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