Photo Images Look for Life and Death in "Ghosts of Humanity".

For Santa Fe’s third biennial festival of photography, three renown photographers come together to speak the language of image, death and dreams in one of Santa Fe’s newest contemporary galleries. ZINO contemporary, of 203 East Palace Avenue will be hosting, "Ghosts of Humanity", July 9 through August 9. For this show, Santa Fe photographers Sam Devine Tischler and Patti Levey will combine forces with Svetlana Bahchevanova from Sofia, Bulgaria.

"I’m excited to bring these three together", says Lys Anzia, director of ZINO contemporary. "Their individual styles are very different from each other but together they explore a vast contrast of views on life, death and what lies in between".

Photographing the old tombstones of Eastern Europe, the freshly covered graves of Kosovo during the 1998 Serbian conflict, and the image of ashen covered shoes from a New York City store front only one day after 9/11, Svetlana Bahchevanova, uses her journalistic eye to enter a subject that has surrounded her an entire lifetime. "I want to tell stories with my pictures. I want to take the viewer beyond ground zero to the rest of the world", says Bahchevanova.

"I believe the viewer can really be changed just by seeing an image", says Santa Fe photographer, Patti Levey. "I’ve spent alot of time sharpening my ability to bring the perfect photograph to paper". Using the traditional method of silver gelatin photo printing, Levey relies on her 20 years of experience. Her stark black and white images of beauty and death can be seen in her use of such things as buffalo, deer, ravens and the dried bones of small birds.

Local photographer, Sam Devine Tischler’s wide open photo images of White Sands Desert provide the other side of understanding our relationship between life and death. "His photographs show a beautiful stark and open endlessness from the birthplace of the nuclear bomb", says Anzia. "I feel adding Sam to the show is a great gift". In addition to Tischler’s photographs of the desert, his ghostly images of sacred animal bones will give each viewer of "Ghosts of Humanity" a one way ticket to the invisible worlds.

The show will kick off with an artist reception Saturday, July 9, 5-8pm.

For more information contact:
Lys Anzia, Director
ZINO contemporary
203 E. Palace Ave.
Santa Fe, NM 87501
cell / 505.231.5794 gallery / 505.982.5598
website: http://www.zinocontemporary.com



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