“CHOP SHOP” continues at Candela Books + Gallery for this week’s art walk. “CHOP SHOP” is an exhibition exploring the work of seven artists, who are transforming images through various processes of manipulation. Featured artists are: Nadine Boughton, Tom Chambers, Blythe King, Peter Brown Leighton, Lissa Rivera, Ayumi Tanaka, and Maggie Taylor.
Though each of the photographic works in this exhibition have been altered through digital manipulation, the tools of collage, illustration, deconstruction, redaction, surrealism are used in different measures by the exhibiting artists. By chiseling the foundation of their imagery, new perspectives are presented, as meaning shifts away from the real, slipping through different eras and otherworldly narratives.
Since it’s invention, the camera has been considered a truth telling instrument. But all along, there have been subversive applications, when depictions of the real have been pushed to suit the needs of the maker. So, information became less concrete and far more subjective and photography more mutable. Each of these artists, have uniquely embraced fabrication and the whole cloth creation of ideas, shaping reality by their own designs.

Ayumi Tanaka “The path,” from the series Wish You Were Here. 2014. 16″ x 20″ Silver Gelatin Print

Maggie Taylor “What remains?,” 2016. 22″x 22″ Inkjet Print

Peter Brown Leighton, “Man Lives Through Plutonium Blast,” 2014. 10″ x 7″ Archival Pigment Print