Jackson Fine Art is excited to announce our spring exhibitions of new work by Masao Yamamoto and Carolyn Carr, two artists whose innovative interpretations of the cultivated landscape usher one of photography’s foundational subjects into the 21st century. Photography and florals have a rich history, with early artists depending on florals to communicate symbolism and convey beauty; Carr and Yamamoto, in turn, draw on their surrounding environments to offer cultural signifiers of beauty and calm increasingly invaluable in a tumultuous time.

Also on view will be an installation from the L.A.-based art collaborative Fallen Fruit, whose unique wallpapers and narrative photography are informed by their experiential and community-driven public projects, for which they always use indigenous fruit as either material or inspiration. On the evening of Friday, April 12th, 6-8pm, the gallery will hold an opening reception with Carr and Fallen Fruit (Austin Young and David Burns) in attendance. Artist talks will follow on Saturday, April 13th at 11am.  

Masao Yamamoto’s latest series, Bonsai, is singularly focused on the tradition of Japanese “tray planting,” a contemplative practice of maintaining small trees that mimic the shape and scale of full-size trees. To these photographs of the trees themselves, Yamamoto adds his characteristic surrealist touch by manipulating the backgrounds and perspectives of his compositions — a tree is larger than the moon, a bonsai teeters on a cliff, dwarfing a mountain range. Viewers are drawn in by Yamamoto’s insertion of a cultivated, “indoor” object into a seemingly outdoor setting and then back into the studio. The trick of Yamamoto’s practice is his blurring of these lines.

In her newest series, Out of the Studio, Carr similarly conflates the natural world with artistic construction. Known for her multimedia installations and experimental photography, Carr’s work addresses the battle and attendant healing inherent in the struggle to establish personal identity within a cultural landscape. In this series, Carr takes a formalist turn, photographing plant life native to the Blue Ridge Mountains en plein air, nodding to the past by utilizing a box easel and employing natural light and shadow to capture still lifes at turns delicate and ominous.