SALT Gallery Presents Tropical Botanical Photographs by Nancy Spiewak: Special Preview on July 2
“The clacking of the palm fronds when the wind is blowing, the thud of coconuts hitting the ground, and the random, sometimes massive chunks of odd-shaped and textured husks, berries, leaves are sculpturally fascinating pieces of tropical foliage that land on the ground,” says Nancy Spiewak, who commemorates botanical life in the tropics in her newest photography exhibit that opens on Saturday, July 2 from 6pm-8pm at SALT Gallery.
“Botanicals” features over a dozen of Spiewak’s new works– untitled archival pigment prints printed on 100% cotton rag paper, professionally matted and framed by Scott Wilcox at Key West Fine Art Services on Stock Island, with the larger pieces printed by Alan Kennish— and will be exhibited throughout the month of July at SALT Gallery.
“Nancy Spiewak’s Botanicals transform the ordinary into extraordinary,” says gallery owner Jeffrey Cardenas. “Her images—a seed pod, a coconut husk, a pattern in the leaf of a sea grape—remind us to never overlook the glory of nature in the simplest of its incarnations.”
Spiewak, who has been taking photographs since she was 11, lived in Key West from 1991-2006, working as a photographer for Solares Hill newspaper, photography gallery owner in Bahama Village, and pink taxi driver. Though she now lives on a Gulf Island in the Pacific Northwest, she occasionally travels to Key West to stay aboard her antique wooden boat.
“When I came back after a long absence, I began to notice things I had taken for granted or overlooked while living there,” she says. “I saw the island and foliage with fresh eyes.”
As an artist, Spiewak’s surrounding environment and the initial impressions it makes influences her process and calls forth certain projects “on their own,” she says. She is also motivated by a sense of immediacy to capture what moves her, aware of life’s “everyday mundane struggles” and their potential to interfere with the creative process. This brings an almost heightened sensibility how she expresses her subjects, and a bit of irony, drama, and wonder to what might first appear to be a static object.
“The botanicals presented at SALT are organic materials which every person living in the Keys sees every day falling in their yards, on the sidewalks, poking out of garbage cans— nuisance fronds and leaves and seeds that need to be raked, hauled and disposed of,” she continues. “But when taken out of context and viewed isolated against an empty background, they become elevated and eminent. I’m simply taking what is already abundantly available and presenting it in a new light.
“There is so much ugliness in the world,” she adds. “I am simply trying to capture beauty, whether it be in a person’s face, foliage on the ground, or rocks on the shore. Classic, simple, uncomplicated beauty.”
For more information, call 305.896.2980, visit NancySpiewak.com, or stop by SALT Gallery at 830 Fleming Street in Key West. Sponsored in part by Captain Phillip McGinn.