Haldan Art Gallery welcomes Great Basin Exteriors: A Photographic Survey

Lake Tahoe Community College’s Haldan Art Gallery is the next stop for the Nevada Arts Council’s traveling exhibition program. There will be an artists’ reception April 12 from 6 to 8 p.m. for “Great Basin Exteriors: A Photographic Survey.”

This is an exhibit of 20 photographs by three regional artists — Adam Jahiel, Daniel Cheek and Nolan Preece. The artists’ work examines loss, change and abandonment in the American West. In this exhibit, the Great Basin is roughly defined as the area between the Wasatch Mountains along the Idaho and Utah borders and the Sierra Nevada Mountains along the Nevada and California borders. The three photographers featured in the exhibit have, independently, concentrated on the documentation of subjects that are changing in or rapidly disappearing from the Western landscape.

Geologically, the Great Basin is part of the Basin and Range Province that covers most of Nevada and more than half of Utah, as well as parts of California, Idaho, Oregon and Wyoming. Adam Jahiel’s photograph of cowboys in Northern Nevada poignantly illustrates both this rugged way of life and its marginalization in contemporary society. Daniel Cheek’s work celebrates the spaciousness of the Great Basin, which is then juxtaposed with small intrusions in the landscapes that are indicative of a changing West. Nolan Preece examines the rustic patina that is diminishing with restoration and development across the Great Basin.

The work of each photographer reflects a distinct style and technique, perfected during careers as highly regarded professional artists. Jahiel uses the platinum print to archive and preserve his images for the future. Cheek works with an 8 x 10 camera to reproduce the rich color of the Great Basin on chromogenic photo paper. Preece combines large format and digital cameras to produce black and white and color images of high quality.

Organized by the Nevada Arts Council, “Great Basin Exteriors: A Photographic Survey” is one of the traveling exhibits in the Nevada Touring Initiative – Traveling Exhibition Program, and is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Nevada State Legislature. The Nevada Arts Council is a division of the Department of Tourism and Cultural Affairs. The exhibit runs in the Haldan Gallery from April 12 to June 15 and is open to the public during regular gallery hours, Tuesday – Thursday from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Friday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. School tours can also be arranged by emailing NelsonD@ltcc.edu.

A special thanks to the Darrell Armuth and Donna Hellwinkel Collection for its loan of their Adam Jahiel platinum prints for this exhibition.

Artists’ Reception: Thursday, April 12, 6 to 8 p.m. in the Haldan Gallery
Dates of Exhibition: April 12 – June 15, 2012

Gallery Hours:
Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 11am – 5:30pm; Fridays, 11am – 2:30pm

— Christina Proctor is the Public Information Officer for Lake Tahoe Community College. She can be reached at proctor@ltcc.edu