PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial will present the first exhibition in the thirtieth season of the four-part Wind Challenge Exhibitions at Fleisher—the Delaware Valley’s premier juried artist exhibition program. This season’s twelve Challenge artists were selected from a field of 273 applicants to exhibit in one of four three-person exhibitions. The first of this year’s Wind Challenge features bold gestural work of photographers Walter Plotnick, Roger Matsumoto, and Richard Ryan. The exhibition begins on Saturday, September 8th, with an opening reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., and continues through October 6th.

Both the exhibition and the opening reception are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, with additional hours of 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., Saturday.

On Saturday, September 29, from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., artist/teacher Mary Murphy will lead the Challenge “TalkAbout”, an in depth dialogue with Challenge Artists and audience. Admission is free.

Walter Plotnick builds temporary still life images using vintage found objects and images on top of photographic paper while in the darkroom. He then produces mysterious Photogram images combining wet photography, drawing, and digital manipulation. Plotnick produces strong images by using a variety of light sources, digitally combining, repeating, or adding images as he proceeds. He is visually exploring abstraction in the work created via the combined objects and drawing. Mr. Plotnick received his B.F.A. from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, and his M.F.A. from the University of the Arts.

Roger Matsumoto makes beautiful poetic palladium prints by applying palladium salts solution to watercolor paper. He adds brush lines at the same time as the solution, then adds a full size negative to the surface and exposes them all to ultraviolet light. Each print is a distinct realization of the negative. Working in this way he is really producing a mono print using the photographic process. Mr. Matsumoto received his B.S. from Seattle University and his M.S. from the University of Washington.

Richard Ryan uses photographs as a communicative gesture. He captures vast numbers of images in his environment and synthesizes them into a single physical image. The objects he produces reminds one of an explosion of a movie film spreading across the print paper. The images appear to move, come apart, blow up, disappear, change shape or simply stand still, creating a kinetic abstraction of a movie in a single image. The viewer becomes an active participant in the photograph’s history and process. Mr. Ryan received his B.A. from the University of California, Irvine and his M.L.Arch. from the University of Pennsylvania.