Chronotopographies: Remembering in Digital, an exhibition featuring photographic works digitally rendered by UCSC art professors Lewis Watts and Norman Locks, will be on display at the Felix Kulpa Gallery, 107 Elm Street in downtown Santa Cruz, through October 28.
Watts has been working professionally as a photographer, archivist, and curator since 1974, focusing on communities in the neighborhoods of Oakland, Richmond and San Francisco. He is co-author of the 2006 book, Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era, which features his restorations of salvaged photographs that portray musicians and patrons of the vibrant jazz scene in the Fillmore District during the 1940s and 50s. see UCSC Review article
Watts' digital works include photographs from the lower eastside of Manhattan, South-Central Los Angeles, and most notably, New Orleans--both before and after Hurricane Katrina. He joined the UCSC art faculty in 2001.
Widely recognized for his experimentation with Polaroids and digital processes, Norman Locks has been scanning photographs taken with the Polaroid I-Zone camera containing miniature details of everyday household experiences, and reconstructing them using digital imaging techniques. He has also been working with still images taken from digital hand-held video panning shots and rebuilding them into still panoramic landscapes of domestic life.
Locks studied photography at the San Francisco Art Institute and San Francisco State University. In 1976, he worked as an assistant to Ansel Adams, and Locks directed the photography workshop at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite from 1973-77. He joined the UCSC art faculty in 1977.
The Felix Kulpa gallery is open Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 6 p.m. A reception for the artists will be held on October 5, from 5 to 9 p.m. For more information, call (408) 373-2854.
