JEAN KAROTKIN GYMNOPEDIES

Gymnopédies, Karotkin's ongoing series of botanical portraits, takes its name from a trio of piano compositions by 19th-century French composer Erik Satie.

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Void of connotation, the unusual title freed Satie from stylistic constraints and gifted his audience with a new musical experience. Karotkin's Gymnopédies encourage a similar foray into the realm of flower photography, disavowing context and the conventional notion that flowers are most evocative when captured in color and in full bloom.

Launched in 20TK, Karotkin initiated Gymnopédies as a black and white body of work, shooting in film and natural light, using her "go to" medium format Mamiya RZ Pro II, switching between a110MM and MACRO lens. The artist's primary objective is to eschew sentimentality in favor of heady tonal interplay. The resulting chiaroscuro abstracts and anthropomorphizes, exposing some of nature's more subversive personalities. As with Satie's work, these images pacify through dramatic texture, emotional provocation, and a welcomed dissonance. They are innocent and erotic and still live in motion.