Frank Pictures Gallery presents Joe Aker Seductive Synthesis: An Erotic Exploration Of Architectural Surface: Gaudi & Gehry. On view June 10th – July 25th.
Aker, a renowned Architectural photographer, was intrigued by the undulating shapes of Barcelona’s Casa Mila, an expansive apartment building designed by Antoni Gaudi that had been photographed as a whole many, many times. Aker decided to look for the sensuous details inside of the work, where most people never look.
He captured slopes of Casa Mila that resemble a woman on her back with her breasts gently reclining on either side of her chest and chimney details suggesting a male phallus. Within the Gaudi structure, as well as the luninous surfaces of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, Aker deliniated forms that are as supple and suggestive as contemporary nude sculpture. Printed directly on aluminum panels, Aker’s work asks that we fantasize and allow our imaginations to go beyond architecture to discover its underlying dynamic eroticism. “Looking beyond surface is important to my work”, says Aker, “I want to strip away the masks of the exterior and show the emotional charge that runs beneath form into feeling.”
Joe Aker’s architectural work has appeared in all the major architectural magazines and he has photographed projects for major architects and developers such as Hines, Transwestern, DMJM, Rotett Studio, Cesar Pelli, Robert Stern, HOK, Gensler, Kirksey, Picard Chilton and Duda Paine. He was recognized as Artist Of The Year by the Houston AIA chapter in 2007. He grew up in Oklahoma City and has a degree in Marketing and Economics from Central State University in Edmond, Oklahoma and a degree in Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.
Aker opened his own photography studio in 1978 and continues to operate it today as Aker Imaging Lab, recognized as one of the premier photographic and digital labs in Texas. In 2005, Joe began to exhibit his own fine art work. He has had two solo shows at the Deborah Colton Gallery in Houston and a solo show of his landscape photography in Galveston at the Buchanan Gallery. He has recently been commissioned to produce a large sculptural photographic work for a new education building in the Woodlands and installed a large permanent artwork in the loby of the new Performing Arts Center at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. (Shown Above) His work has appeared in numerous museum group shows and in now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. He has lectured on photography worldwide.
Image: Joe Aker, Turmoil © Courtesy of the Artist and Frank Pictures Gallery
Frank Pictures Gallery
2525 Michigan Ave. A5
Santa Monica, CA 90404
(310) 828-0211
www.frankpicturesgallery.com
