Photographer Paul Roark to be featured at Gallery Los Olivos

Staff Report

Photographic artist and innovator Paul Roark will be the featured artist of the month with an exhibit of his stunning black-and-white images in the SYV Arts Guild Room at Gallery Los Olivos from Sept. 6 to Oct. 5.

Roark is an internationally collected artist, recognized for his contributions to advancing black and white printing technology via carbon pigments that result in the most archival photographic images.

The special exhibit in the Guild Room is coordinated with a second collection of the artist’s work, as he will also be the featured artist in the Gallery Los Olivos front room.  The displays will both showcase non-traditional black and white photography print media.

“The GLO front room will be called ‘Carbon on Canvas,’ which is my description of my process that uses inkjet printers to put my custom carbon inksets onto canvas substrates for large displays.  The Guild Room display will be called ‘Carbon on Cotton,’ which is how I describe my process of printing carbon pigments onto Arches watercolor paper,” Roark said

“While the canvas is appropriate for very large prints, the ‘Carbon on Arches’ is, in my view, simply the most archival photographic medium possible.  The carbon-carbon bond is the strongest in nature, and, as a result, the carbon pigments are the most lightfast and stable pigments we have.  Arches watercolor paper, particularly because it is uncoated, is also expected to have a far longer life than any coated or laminated photographic paper,” he added.

A reception for the artist will be held on Thursday, Sept. 10, from 2-4 p.m. at the gallery.

The Guild Room at Gallery Los Olivos is a space made available to member artists of the Santa Ynez Valley Art Association (formerly the Artists Guild SYV), a nonprofit arts organization with more than 30 years of history in the area.

The Guild Room at Gallery Los Olivos is at 2920 Grand Ave. For more information, visit www.gallerylosolivos.com or www.paulroark.com.