Skip to main content
Skip to main content

John Ruppert'S Striking Composite Photos Of Icelandic Terrain On Display At Grimaldis Gallery

December 12, 2013 Art | College of Arts and Humanities

Photos Of Icelandic Terrain On Display At Grimaldis Gallery

John Ruppert, professor of art, presents "The Iceland Project."

by Time Smith, The Baltimore Sun

For most of John Ruppert's career, metal sculpture has been a major focus, but he has added photography to his pursuits lately. Some of the results can be sampled and savored in an exhibit at C. Grimaldis Gallery titled "The Iceland Project."

The Massachusetts-born artist, who has a studio in Druid Hill, was one of the first winners of the $25,000 Baker Prize in 2009. He has been a faculty member at the University of Maryland, College Park, since 1987 and chair of its art department for the past 15 years.

Ruppert spent a month in Iceland and took a large number of shots that he subsequently fused to create "multiple image composites" of the stark, often sculptural terrain. The manipulative process is evident not just in the strangely colored skies, but also in subtle nuances that reveal themselves on closer inspection.

In a few of the works, the presence of human culture can be barely detected — a low fence winding through a desolate hilltop, for example, in "Laki Ridge," a work that jolts with its avocado green sky.

Another such jolt is delivered by "Black Lake, Orange Sky/Kleifarvatn." This 40-by-40-inch print is 95 percent sky; at the bottom of the print, the placid lake creates a striking horizon line.

To read more, please click here.