All photos © Elijah Gowin/courtesy Robert Mann Gallery. Above: “Into the Sun 12,” 2009

Elijah Gowin has transgressed one of the most basic rules of photography in his latest series, “Into the Sun.” Shooting into the sun is a way of courting blindness, but it’s also a daring way to confront the source of the force and power of the center of our solar system. His exhibit “Into the Sun” is on display through October 22 at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York City.

Gowin, who received a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008, is currently associate professor in the department of art and art history at University of Missouri-Kansas City.  Critic Lyle Rexer has written, “Elijah Gowin is the prophet of this longing, the diviner of such dreams. His work confronts the impenetrability of the world and the challenge of representing it.”

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Life Saver © Caren Alpert

San Francisco based photographer Caren Alpert used her passion of food imagery and food issues to create her latest fine art project microscopically photographing food. Through her lens, common food items from blueberries to fortune cookies—are transformed into wondrous and often mysterious landscapes of texture and color. Alpert showed My Life With Science, Art and Food as a participant at this year’s Photolucida in Portland, Oregon.

“As a food lover and a photographer I answer these questions visually. Using scientific laboratory photo equipment, I journey over the surfaces of both organic and processed foods: my own favorites and America’s over-indulgences. The closer the lens got, the more I saw food and consumers of food (all of us!) as part of a larger eco-system than mere sustenance.” —Caren Alpert

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© Jane Fulton Alt

“Burn No. 49” from Jane Fulton Alt‘s series on controlled brush fires. She was “drawn to the ephemeral quality of the moment when life and death are not contradictory but are perceived as a single process to be embraced as a whole.”

Alt’s images, along with those of other artists featured in The Curator 2011 online gallery, are currently on display in the Milk Gallery in New York City. The opening reception will be held this Thursday, July 14th at 7:00 PM. Visit the RSVP page for details.

© Catherine Nelson/Galerie Paris-Beijing.

As a contemporary ode to Nature, the image series “Creation” by Catherine Nelson contains sublime and dreamlike elements, staged as serenely revolving spheres. Photographs of nature are blended with digital techniques to give shape to these transcendental landscapes. Every image is meticulously composed with thousands of precisely assembled details, capturing the essence and peaceful strength of various imaginary places. Nelson’s photographs are on view at Galerie Paris-Beijing in Paris until June 2, 2011.

“Sea Etching 39.” All photos © Nicola Dill

The images in Nicola Dill’s “Sea Etchings” series resemble gestural paintings or calligraphy. They’re actually photos of sea grass washed up on sandy beaches.  An installation of photos from the series is now view in the south gallery of RoseGallery in Santa Monica through June 25.

Dill calls the poetic shapes the grass forms “temporary etchings”; her work documents the art made by water and the tides. “Sea Etchings”  has also been published as a monograph by Nazraeli. Dill, a Los Angeles-based photographer, has posted an artist statement about the work on her Web site, www.nicoladill.com.

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