Artists from across the nation submitted work for CEPA's second Emerging Artist Exhibit. From traditional black-and-white documentary images to video installations, the work was an ecclectic sampling of current photographic practice. Two artists were chosen for this years exhibition, Tim Merrick and Carol Selter. CEPA's second Emerging Artist Exhibit will be on view from February 15 to March 27, 1997 at CEPA's gallery in the Market Arcade Complex, Buffalo NY.



TIM MERRICK



Ithaca, New York artist Tim Merrick's work combines the photographic with the tactile. Encaustic birds, encased as specimens are juxtaposed with pinhole photographs of birds which have also been covered with encaustic. The present smell and tactile feel of the wax are juxtaposed with the time worn Animal Locomotion image of Edweard Muybridge. "The passing of time re-orders the way that we look at the world around us," Merrick states. "Using historical sources I combine images and ideas to creat timeless works, works that deal less with verbal ideas and more with the nonverbal concepts."



CAROL SELTER



Soquel, California artist Carol Selter's work unites the humorous with the scientific. The viewer is presented with the underside of chicks, frogs, turtles and even deathshead roaches. Using a flatbed digital scanner as a camera, Selter's specimens are both energetic and frozen in digital time. The scanner captures, in fitful bursts, the motion of animals. The resulting images present a time-lapse pattern unique to each species. "I began to see that each kind of animal (scanned) produced a pattern somehow typical of its type of locomotion," Selter says. "The visible halftone dots serve to 'atomize' the image, so the closer you look the less information you get. Only by standing back and taking in the whole scene does an image emerge... this is an argument against reductionism as the answer to the secret of life."