Pete Eckert is announced the winner of Exposure, photo competition.

New York, NY—“I never really took photography seriously until I went totally blind.” This extraordinary statement comes from Pete Eckert a uniquely talented photographer who was just announced the winner of the major photography competition: “Exposure” hosted by Artists Wanted.

Following in the footsteps of recent public art exhibitions that have permeated the city, Mr. Eckert’s work will be shown in an ambitious public display spanning the top art districts of New York City. The figurative work, which features explosions of light and teeters on the verge of abstraction, will be projected on a massive scale on buildings and rooftops within Chelsea, Dumbo and Williamsburg. The projection series will culminate in an opening at the Leo Kesting Gallery in the Meat Packing District on Thursday August 7th.

Over the past three months, Artists Wanted received hundreds of submissions from photographers spanning 14 countries and every corner of the United States. Three judges selected the winning artist: New York Times Photo Editor Patrick Witty, Fashion Icon Tiiu Kuik and NYC Gallery Owner David Kesting.

“In this competition we were overwhelmed by the variety of powerful work submitted” states William Etundi, co-founder of Artists Wanted. “Many entrants had amazing back stories, however it was Pete’s unique photography that stood out to the judges. Knowing his process deepens the experience with his photos but the imagery on its own is simply stunning.”

“The goal of Artists Wanted is to launch exceptional talents in innovative ways,” says Jason Goodman who founded Artists Wanted only a year ago; “by projecting Mr. Eckert’s work across the city we hope to expose his images and story to the widest audience possible.”

The projection series will run from Monday August 4th through Wednesday August 6th. On Thursday August 7th Mr. Eckert joins the press and art-loving public for an opening and party at the Leo Kesting Gallery from 6 pm to 9 pm with a special press preview from 5 pm to 6 pm.

“By memorizing the event of taking photos using sound and touch I have a clear minds eye view of my work. I could do conceptual art by showing the contact sheets and do a write-up about the event of shooting the photos. This would eliminate sighted people from my process. I don’t. I want’ to interact with sighted people. I am trying to cut a path as a blind artist. By interacting with sighted people I am building bridges.” – Pete Eckert

Artists Wanted is an organization dedicated to providing opportunities for emerging talent and transforming the process of breaking into the professional art world. For this project, they are joined by a group of sponsors who share their interest in creating new opportunities for artists: JPG Magazine, 3rd Ward, PhotoShelter, Endless Room, the Williamsburg Gallery Association and Leo Kesting Gallery.

For press inquires and/or high res images, please contact Nikki Bagli at 718.715.4961 or info@artistswanted.org.

The Exposure Competition is Proudly Sponsored by:

Artists Wanted : a collaborative project between several New York City artists and creative organizations working to build new lasting opportunities for emerging talent. We have experienced first hand the difficulties in breaking into the professional art world and it is their mission to make this process more welcoming, dynamic and open-ended. www.artistswanted.org

JPG is a community-created, award-winning magazine for photographers and writers who want inspiration, camaraderie, and connection. The world’s vast array of distributed talent showcased in JPG Magazine provides unique insight and a fresh point of view. www.jpgmag.com

3rd Ward in East Williamsburg Brooklyn is a member-based, multi-arts, mega space for creative professionals. We are committed to helping artists further their careers and creative projects and offer two gorgeous photo studios, a professional wood and metal shop, a fully loaded digital media lab, an art gallery, shared office space and a multi-disciplinary continuing art education program. www.3rdward.com

PhotoShelter is the leading online destination where image buyers connect with a community of independent photographers seeking to market their work. The PhotoShelter Collection is a global image marketplace where 17,000 photographers from 130 different countries submit a stream of 4,000 new images daily for rights managed and royalty free licensing – and where they keep an unprecedented 70% of every sale. At PhotoShelter, image buyers find a freshness of choices that results when accomplished pros and undiscovered hobbyists can share their distinct perspectives in an edited collection designed to add diversity and authenticity to any creative project. www.photoshelter.com

Endless Room is the destination for art online. As a social marketplace, EndlessRoom connects artists, art lovers and art establishments through collaboration, communication, promotion, and commerce. We are committed to opening the avenues of interaction between artists, collectives, galleries, schools, museums and everyone who lives and loves art. www.endlessroom.com

Williamsburg Gallery Association aids and encourages the public presentation of local and international art in the vicinity of greater Williamsburg as an integral and necessary component of an ongoing creative dialogue. Toward this end, we promote the art venues of Williamsburg through public programs, advertising, and collaborative events. www.williamsburggalleryassociation.com

Leo Kesting Gallery Founded in October 2007 by David Kesting and John Leo, Leo Kesting Gallery seeks to expose our artists and those of our sister gallery Capla Kesting Fine Art. After opening its doors 4 years earlier in the gallery hub of Williamsburg Brooklyn, Leo Kesting offers the art viewing public an opportunity to see forthcoming talents in an intimate setting. Leo Kesting constantly seeks new undiscovered artists with a cutting edge to their craft that would be otherwise missed by the contemporary art scene. In this way, we present our collectors with an off the beaten path approach to acquiring artwork that shines in our minds and culture. www.leokesting.com

http://www.leokesting.com

GALLERY 1: Shawn Bishop-Leo – Femme Fatale CATALOG OF WORKS

In Shawn Bishop-Leo’s first solo show, Femme Fatale opening Thursday July 17 at Leo Kesting Gallery, the artist explores the archetypal characters from Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae, through innovative mixed-media and compositional technique. Shawn’s multi-layered pieces incorporate vintage wallpapers, fabrics and found objects to, as she explains, “ground the subject matter in the visual world that we are exposed to. The patterns are often repetitive and geometrical but when layered become jumbled and irrational, pushing background into foreground, object into subject and subject into symbol.” In this particular exhibition Leo’s use of the stereotyped feminine art as domestic craft are paired against the strong emotional portraits displaying the feminine mystique in coiled ferocity.

In K.O., 20″ x 24″ mixed media on canvas 2008, a woman is presented with her fist cocked back ready to strike. The under-painting’s streaked rays converge toward the star strewn edge where an imaginary victim lies just outside of the canvas. Here the swirling shapes of the wallpaper evoke vaginal shapes as they swirl from background to foreground. The embroidered brass knuckles at the bottom left turn feminine adornment into weapon as shredded fabric and tangled threads undulate over the surface. The figure seems to literally punch the stuffing out of her opponent and yet her dominance has an almost relaxed self-contained expression in the features.

Leo describes her imagery as “oscillating between the coy and the fierce, a sort of parlay between dominance and submission.” In Connected, the heroine clutches a telephone gazing earnestly into the distance. The crackled “sky” of the background symbolizes the intensity of her conversation while the encroaching floral motifs seem to be a sort of feminine laurel partially adorning her features while simultaneously obscuring them. Multi-national coins lay scattered over the surface representing the universal currency of a woman’s coercive lingual abilities.

GALLERY 2: Like The Spice Gallery - Have you seen the Horizon Lately?

Like the Spice is proud to present Have You Seen the Horizon Lately, an exhibition featuring contemporary landscapes by
Rachel Beach, Liz Brown, Anna Druzcz, Allison Edge, Dean Goelz, Nora Herting, Eric LoPresti and Ross Racine and hosted by the always-on-the-cutting-edge Leo Kesting Gallery in the meatpacking district.

Landscape art has historically had more to do with artists and the cultures they live in than with the actual lay of the land. Today, as natural landscapes are further than ever from our day-to-day lives, landscape art is even more tenuously connected to any sense of a natural pristine beauty. Landscapes today are phantasmagoric representations of communities, memories and consumer fantasies. Most places we spend our time in are either haphazard mishmashes of the architecture of necessity or environments purposefully designed to encourage our consumption.

The artists in this exhibition combine the fantasy of and longing for a place we belong with a deep understanding of the near impossibility of finding it. Dystopian visions of landscapes in ruins, works depicting the sublime horror of battlefields, fantasy suburban developments with nonsense layouts and abstract memories of what nature was like populate this show. There are also moments of levity. A spaceship presides over a stuntman’s ring of fire in the desert, a duck-human hybrid contemplates nature and we get a peek of Space Mountain as we stroll through Tomorrowland in a technicolored photo-memory.

Like The Spice is proud to have been invited to jump aboard the latest anti-mainstream commando operation to be organized by the Kesting/Capla/Leo trinity- originating of course, in Williamsburg, then hurtling through the L-train tunnel like a banshee on speed in order to infiltrate the Meat Packing site of the future Whitney museum- symbolically trail-blazing ahead of the establishment which will be bringing up the rear sometime circa 2012…The CK-LK work ethic of do it now in order to open up new territory (for art and artists) is based on generosity, motivation and passion, and can only be commended and admired.

Femme Fatale & Have You Seen The Horizon Lately? opens to the public with a reception for the artists at Leo Kesting Gallery on Thursday July 17th from 7:00 until 10:00 pm.

From its origins as Capla Kesting Fine Art in Brooklyn, the Leo Kesting Gallery launched in 2003 and developed an aggressive campaign to introduce new figurative artists to collectors and art supporters. Leo Kesting offers the art viewing public an opportunity to see forthcoming talents in an intimate setting where undiscovered, cutting-edge artists are presented to the contemporary art scene.

Leo Kesting Gallery is located at 812 Washington St at the corner of Gansevoort in Manhattan’s Meat Packing District. A, C, E, or L train to 8th Ave and 14th Street or 1,2,3 train to 14th Street. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 11am until 7pm.