P·P·O·W is delighted to announce a new exhibition of recent photographic works by Dutch artist ELLEN KOOI. This is her second solo exhibition in the United States.

Ellen Kooi produces photographs that are a curious blend of documentation and psychology of the Dutch landscape. These panoramas are carefully staged. Kooi works in the manner of a film director, making preliminary sketches, designing the location and lighting, and positioning her human subjects. Through elaborate lighting and the help of double and triple light exposures, Kooi conveys moods of romanticism, melancholy and spirituality in the landscape that surrounds her characters. Despite the size and the involved production method behind these photoworks, she manages to preserve in each piece the surprise and spontaneity of a snapshot.
Ellen Kooi blends her subjects into the places that they inhabit. In these new photographs, women and children contribute a feminization to the natural landscape. In the photograph entitled Almere Ophelia a contemporary woman floats through the famous locks and canals of Holland as if out of John Everett Millais’ Pre-Raphaelite painting. In another photograph, Penningsveer-riet, a young girl stands in a field with eyes closed and lets her self be consumed and in turn transformed by the wind.
As with other pieces in the show, Kooi fuses her classical compositions with a documentary style and a perfectly pitched technique. She conveys the conflicting impulses which characterize life today: the constant changes it undergoes, the rapid shifts in moods and conditions.
Ellen Kooi has been exhibiting her photoworks throughout Europe and the United States since 1990. Most recently her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland and in the Photography Biennale in Moscow. Her pieces have been commissioned and collected by the city of Amersfoort, as well as the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden and the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, 21C Art Hotel/Museum in Louisville Kentucky, among others. Her new catalog “Out of There” is available at the gallery.



Penningsveer Riet, 2005 enduraflex c-print on plexiglass 35 1/2 x 58 1/4 inches

***

Exhibition's Website : www.ppowgallery.com/exhibitions/2006Kooi

Artist's Website : http://www.ellenkooi.nl