A sophisticated lens

27130532

Two local photographers with well-established reputations are being shown in South Philadelphia’s Brandywine Graphics Workshop in the old firehouse, 730 S. Broad St. The show, featuring the cityscapes of John Dowell Jr. and Andrea Baldek’s still lifes, is in the workshop’s printed image gallery, slated to run through July 8.

Dowell is known internationally, but locally, he is probably most recognized as the chairman of the Department of Printmaking at the Tyler School of Art of Temple University. His involvement with the camera goes back about 35 years: he graduated from Tyler, received an MFA at the University of Washington and studied at the Tamarind Lithographic Workshop in Los Angeles. He also taught at a number of other universities, museums and art schools.

Baldek is a virtual Renaissance woman who has expertise in music and medicine, as well as photography. She has traveled the world, from mountaintop to jungle, producing stunning images of the simplest aspects of life and exhibited in numerous venues. While on medical trips to Haiti and Granada, she was both a practicing physician and a photographer. As her biography notes, "The camera and stethoscope occupied the same bag."

Just as Baldek uses nature for inspiration, music is a central point in Dowell’s work. He explains, "I approach the photos the same way I approach drawing in that I am open to looking, as opposed to coming with a conclusion. There are certain things that excite, simultaneous incidents, dramatic scale shifts that are implications of time. When I shoot, I am after a sense of total clarity – if there is such a thing. What I want is a contained space that I can expand or explode – from here to infinity – clarity from a distance to up close, within and or a reflection of that space."

Dowell has performed concerts with his Visual Music Ensemble in Europe and the United States, using his works as music scores. Looking at some of his cityscapes, one senses a definite rhythm and harmony – a beat or pulse of the city, which is reflected in a distinct tempo.

Baldek’s view is more pastoral, which is not in any way saccharine. Her photographs of the people and the river of the Mekong Delta are not at all sentimental, as they are too unflinching in their directness. The artist is also an avid gardener and much of her inspiration comes from plants grown in her backyard. Baldek avoids the calendar art stereotype – a close-up photograph of a blooming flower or a newborn baby, for example, which all of us are expected to think is beautiful – with a detachment that is almost scientific, but also intimate.

Both Dowell and Baldek have been widely exhibited. Dowell has had scores of solo shows in galleries throughout Italy and Germany; here in Philadelphia at the Academy of Fine Arts; the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney in New York; the Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco museums; and the Corcoran Galley in Washington.

Baldek has published a number of photography travel books and has exhibited in local and international venues in Italy and Finland, as well as a number of private and permanent collections in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Currently, she has a second show "The Heart of Haiti" at the James A. Michener Museum in Doylestown, comprised of more than 20 photographs recording daily life in the Artibonite Valley, running through July 9.

Andrea Baldek and John Dowell Jr.
Brandywine Graphics Workshop
730 S. Broad St.
215-546-3675
[email protected]
Monday through Friday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: appointment only
Free admission