Wednesday, September 4, 2013

David Pace's Images from Burkina Faso on View at Corden|Potts Gallery

© David Pace
Untitled (Karaba 8464) from the series Karaba Brick Quarry © 2010 David Pace

From September 5 to November 2 our Alcove spotlight will be on Bay Area photographer David Pace's wonderful images from a brick quarry outside of Karaba, a rural village in the southwestern corner of Burkina Faso. David will join us in the gallery for a reception on September 5 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. We hope you'll be able to join us then.

 

Corden|Potts Gallery is located at 49 Geary Street, Suite 410, in San Francisco. Gallery hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 am to 5:30 pm and until 7:30 pm on the first Thursday of the month.

 

"Outside the village, a short distance off the dusty main road," David explains, "is a quarry where men carve bricks from solid stone using picks and shovels. The rock is called laterite (from the Latin later meaning "brick"). The Karaba quarry has been in constant use for nearly thirty years. The bricks, which are loaded onto wagons and taken to nearby villages, are the basic building blocks for the homes, buildings, and walls that structure the surrounding communities."

 

Speaking about his first visit to the Karaba quarry in January 2008 David says, "I was immediately captivated by the architectural quality of the space, the dazzling color, and the men who work there. The quarry is like a magical, ever-changing work of earth art."

 

He spends many afternoons at the quarry on his annual trips to Burkina Faso, where he's developed a relationship with the quarrymen over the years. Although the quarrymen work side by side, each man sells his own bricks and earns the profit for the bricks he makes. It's a strenuous occupation but David explains that the brick makers earn a decent living by Burkina standards.

 

David Pace has been teaching photography in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than 20 years. As resident director of Santa Clara University's study abroad program in West Africa, he spends up to ten weeks each year in the small country of Burkina Faso, where he has been photographing annually since 2007.

 

David received the 2011 Work-In-Process Prize from Daylight Magazine and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. His work was included in the 2012 biennial Anthology at the Southeast Museum of Photography. His solo exhibition Burkina Faso: Night and Day was shown at the Griffin Museum of Photography in 2013. Bricks: Photographs by David Pace opens at 511 Gallery in New York City in September 2013.

 

In addition, David's photographs of rural Africa have appeared in Lens Culture, aCurator.com, Lenscratch and Daylight Magazine. His Karaba quarry images are featured in this month's PDN Photo District News (You can view the on-line version of the article at this link: 

digitalmag.pdnonline.com/pdnonline/september_2013?pg=101#pg101) and on NPR's Picture Show blog just this week (http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2013/09/03/218520639/the-beauty-of-bricks-in-burkina-faso?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=share&utm_campaign).

 

We hope you'll be able come out on Thursday to say hello to David and to see his beautiful images.

 

                                                                       Liz and Jan

 

© David Pace
Untitled (Karaba 1155) from the series Karaba Brick Quarry © 2008 David Pace
Contact Information:
phone: 415-781-0110
Join Our Mailing List
This email was sent to knf100@gmail.com by info@cordenpottsgallery.com |  
Corden|Potts Gallery | 49 Geary Street | Suite 410 | San Francisco | CA | 94108

No comments:

Post a Comment