"I use the camera to photograph places that I deem worth my memory, places that, for me, betray a mixture of real and imaginary worlds."
The Oregon Artists Series Foundation (OASF) presents two exhibits of recent photographs by Randall Tosh, at its Level 2 Gallery in the Salem Convention Center and the Art Hall at the Salem Public Library. Both shows open on October 8, 2024, run through January 11, 2025, and are free and open to the public.
Randall Tosh
Salem, Oregon photographer Randall Tosh describes himself as “a tourist with a camera, standing at the end of photography, thinking about the English inventor/scholar William Henry Fox Talbot and his attempts at drawing that led to the invention of photography.”
These exhibits feature two selections of Tosh’s photographs, made as part of an ongoing exploration of the uncanny in his travels around the world over the past ten years.
In the Level 2 Gallery at the Convention Center, the photographs are structured in a dream-like narrative, beginning with the image “Bust of Patroclus,” an homage to Fox Talbot, whose “Bust of Patroclus” was one of the first photographs ever made. The subsequent images take the viewer from a dreamlike awakening of sorts, and through a succession of locations that terminate in a boat journey to a shrouded island. Tosh transports the viewer to a form of Arcadia, that land of perfection where humans exist in perfect harmony with nature. But, like the Arcadia in classical mythology, this harmony is overshadowed with approaching doom, because, even in a perfect world, nothing is eternal.
In the Art Hall at the Salem Library, the images originate from a visit Tosh made to a mannerist garden, which dates to the 1500’s, in Bomarzo, Italy.
Near the town of Bomarzo, north of Rome, the Sacro Bosco (Sacred Wood) was built in the 16th Century by Pier Francesco ‘Vicino’ Orsini, a military leader and patron of the arts. In designing the Sacro Bosco, he bucked the tradition of the Italian Renaissance garden. Gone is the symmetrical layout meant to please the observer. Instead of the ornate fountains, neat hedgerows and sculpted Roman gods and goddesses, Orsini left the trees and shrubs undisturbed and filled his garden with unusual and grotesque creatures.
work by Randall Tosh on exhibit at Level 2 Gallery
Tosh received his MFA in photography from the University of Iowa, and has exhibited extensively, both regionally and nationally including the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, and the Jacobs Gallery in Eugene; Utah State University; Sol Mednick Gallery, University of the Arts, Philadelphia; PH Gallery, Budapest, Hungary; and many photography-focused galleries across the US.
Tosh was a practicing attorney in Oregon for many years, specializing in municipal law. He served as Salem’s City Attorney from 2003-2014.
Learn more about Randall Tosh and see more of his work at: www.randall-tosh.squarespace.com.
This exhibition, Souvenirs of Imaginary Places: Photographs by Randall Tosh, is generously supported by a Project Grant from the City of Salem’s Transient Occupancy Tax Funds and the Oregon Arts Commission.
About the Level 2 Gallery at the Salem Convention Center
Level 2 Gallery builds on a 15-year relationship between Salem Convention Center and Oregon Artists Series Foundation to bring high-quality contemporary art to the Center. With major paintings by Salem and Oregon artists installed in the main corridors on the first floor of SCC, Level 2 presents changing solo and group exhibits of work by established and emerging artists of the region on the second floor.
Level 2 Gallery is open to the public Monday through Friday during regular business hours, during special events, or by appointment by calling 503-589-1700.
About the Oregon Artists Series Foundation
The Oregon Artists Series Foundation [OASF] was created in 2008 to promote art in public spaces in Salem. OASF facilitates art in and around the Salem Convention Center that began with a series of Mayor’s Art Invitational exhibitions and purchases from them. That led to the loans of sculptures installed south of the building in a new sculpture court, followed by loans from the Hallie Ford Museum of Art from its collection at Willamette University and work with Salem’s Public Art Commission on planning for public art downtown. OASF opened a gallery space, Level 2, on the second floor of the Convention Center in February 2022, and entered into an agreement with the Salem Public Library to program its new Art Hall shortly after that.