Masao Yamamoto, Carolyn Carr, Fallen Fruit @ Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta

Masao Yamamoto: Bonsai
Carolyn Carr: Out of the Studio
Fallen Fruit
Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta
Through June 29, 2019

Jackson Fine Art presents exhibitions of new work by Masao Yamamoto and Carolyn Carr, two artists whose innovative interpretations of the cultivated landscape usher one of photography’s foundational subjects into the 21st century. Photography and florals have a rich history, with early artists depending on florals to communicate symbolism and convey beauty; Carr and Yamamoto, in turn, draw on their surrounding environments to offer cultural signifiers of beauty and calm increasingly invaluable in a tumultuous time.

Also on view is an installation from the L.A.-based art collaborative Fallen Fruit, whose unique wallpapers and narrative photography are informed by their experiential and community-driven public projects, for which they always use indigenous fruit as either material or inspiration. 

Masao Yamamoto’s latest series, Bonsai, is singularly focused on the tradition of Japanese “tray planting,” a contemplative practice of maintaining small trees that mimic the shape and scale of full-size trees. To these photographs of the trees themselves, Masao Yamamoto adds his characteristic surrealist touch by manipulating the backgrounds and perspectives of his compositions — a tree is larger than the moon, a bonsai teeters on a cliff, dwarfing a mountain range. Viewers are drawn in by Masao Yamamoto’s insertion of a cultivated, “indoor” object into a seemingly outdoor setting and then back into the studio. The trick of Masao Yamamoto’s practice is his blurring of these lines.

In her newest series, Out of the Studio, Carolyn Carr similarly conflates the natural world with artistic construction. Known for her multimedia installations and experimental Carolyn Carr’s work addresses the battle and attendant healing inherent in the struggle to establish personal identity within a cultural landscape. In this series, Carolyn Carr takes a formalist turn, photographing plant life native to the Blue Ridge Mountains en plein air, nodding to the past by utilizing a box easel and employing natural light and shadow to capture still lifes at turns delicate and ominous.

MASAO YAMAMOTO

Masao Yamamoto (b. 1957, Japan) is known for evoking emotional power in the form of small-scale photographs. His early background in painting is apparent in his works’ painterly look, incorporating blurs and experimenting with printing surfaces; with many photographs, Masao Yamamoto manipulates silver gelatin prints through means such as staining the images with tea or actual paint, or tearing them. His subjects vary wildly, ranging from the Japanese countryside to nude female bodies. Many liken Masao Yamamoto’s art to haikus, due to his mastery of brevity and focus on everyday details. Masao Yamamoto is based in Yamanashi, Japan. His work has been exhibited in numerous international institutions including High Museum of Art, Atlanta; George Eastman House, Rochester; Carrousel du Louvre, Paris; Galerie de Moderne, Munich; and Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego. Yamamoto’s photographs are included in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the International Center of Photography, New York; and the Sir Elton John Collection, among others. His monographs include Tori, Radius Books, 2016; Fujsan, Nazraeli press, 2008; é, Nazraeli Press, 2005; Omizuao, Nazraeil Press, 2003; Nakazora Nazraeli Press, 2001; and A Box of Ku, Nazraeli Press, 1998. This is his fourth solo exhibition at Jackson Fine Art.

CAROLYN CARR

Carolyn Carr (b. 1966) is a multi-media artist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Carr received her BFA from the Atlanta College of Art. Her work, exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Asia and Europe — including the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; BIG POND Artworks, Munich, Germany; Artists Space, New York, NY; 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; and the High Museum of Art and Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA. — has been critically received and reviewed in numerous publications. In addition to Out of the Studio, Carolyn Carr’s recent and upcoming exhibitions include the Untitled Fair with Marisa Newman Projects, Miami; City of Atlanta Gallery 72, curated by Kevin Sipp; and an appointment as Visiting Artist of the Tbilisi, Georgia Art Fair. This is her third solo exhibition at Jackson Fine Art.

FALLEN FRUIT

Fallen Fruit is an art collaborative originally conceived in 2004 by David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young. Since 2013, David Burns and Austin Young have continued the collaboration. Fallen Fruit's photography developed by mapping fruit trees growing on or over public property in Los Angeles, and has since expanded to include serialized public projects and site-specific installations and happenings in various cities around the world. By always working with fruit as a material or media, the catalogue of photography projects and works reimagine public interactions with the margins of urban space, systems of community and narrative real-time experience. Public Fruit Jams invites a broad public to transform homegrown or public fruit and join in communal jam-making as experimentation in personal narrative and sublime collaboration; Nocturnal Fruit Forages, nighttime neighborhood fruit tours, explores the boundaries of public and private space at the edge of darkness. Fallen Fruit’s photography and visual work includes an ongoing series of narrative photographs, wallpapers, everyday objects and video works that explore the social and political implications of our relationship to fruit and world around us. Recent and upcoming projects include Aki Aora 2019, Tulum; Food: Bigger than the Plate at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (May, 2019); and a solo installation at Kunsthall 3.14, Bergen, Norway (June, 2019). This is their first exhibition at Jackson Fine Art.

JACKSON FINE ART
3115 East Shadowlawn Ave. NE, Atlanta, GA 30305
www.jacksonfineart.com