April 3, 2001 – Two well-known St. John photographers, Steve Simonsen and Constance Wallace, are the featured artists in a dual exhibition opening Friday at Bajo el Sol Gallery.
Each artist is showing work that represents movement in a new direction artistically. Wallace is displaying a series of images she calls "Floral Kaleidoscope." Simonsen's collection is titled "St. John through the Eyes of Steve Simonsen."
The public is invited to meet the artists and engage them in discussion about their work at the opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday in the gallery, located in the Mongoose Junction II complex in Cruz Bay.
Simonsen, who has been photographing the beauty of St. John for years, began the largest self-assignment of his career in January. "Over the next two years I will create photography in hopes of achieving higher standards than ever before," he says, for the purpose of self-publishing a large coffee-table book about the island of St. John. His subject matter mainly will be natural settings and occurrences – vegetation, wildlife and marine life.
In search of the perfect pictures, Simonsen is in the process of traversing the island, scouting its bays, hiking its trails and exploring its still largely undisturbed guts and forests. His goal is to create imagery for the book that will entice viewers, creating questions in their minds of how each particular photo was shot. He is seeking to reconsider images that have long been "icons of St. John" from different angles, literally and intellectually.
"During the next complete seasonal cycles, I will be evaluating each piece of film more critically and making a special file of only the finest images that will be considered for publication," he says.
Prints of some that have already passed the test "or come very, very close" have been matted and framed for the Bajo el Sol show.
Wallace, a St. John resident since 1980, has worked as a photographer of weddings, portraits and local events for years. In "Floral Kaleidoscope" she is employing photography for art's sake in a way unique to the island itself.
"Something is always blooming on St. John," she says. "Even so, those among us who love flowers can hardly get enough. We fill our gardens with bougainvillea, hibiscus, ixora, spider lilies and a hundred others … a panorama of color, form, texture and size. Entourages of bees, lizards, ants, dragonflies, beetles, spiders, hummingbirds and other pollinators accompany the blooms, and their spirits lift our own. With each incredible bloom, one life cycle culminates and another promises to begin."
What Wallace is showing are collages made from flower photos. "Some are quite straightforward," she says. "Others are over the edge. (How else do you know where the edge is, unless you go over it every now and then?) The works are so colorful they tickle your brain, they catch your eye in passing – then, you can't help but get closer and become mesmerized by the details."
Such as: "The center of the orchid appears as an alien, or a jaguar. Hibiscus stamens are seductive, poke fun or weep gracefully toward the earth. Hula Girl's middle bleeds with fire. A bananaquit stands guard in a century plant. Pure white spider lilies entertain black ants on their pretty hymens." Her work, Wallace says, "collapses time so that the floral world of St. John all blooms at once."
The dual exhibit will hang through the end of April. Regular hours at Bajo el Sol Gallery are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
