The Board of Yanasa Creative Group expresses pride and applauds Carl E. Lewis’, Chairman and co-Founder, on his participation in the historic opening of ‘Reflections in Black: A Reframing’ at NYU’s Tisch School of the Art, Center for Black Visual Culture’s Cooper Square Gallery Thursday September 4.
A partner in the New Media company about 1988 Mr. Lewis deconstructed the Cibachrome dye-destruction process creating, ‘Jinnagraph’ images, process-driven and image manipulated prints. This Facet of his body of work is referenced in Dr. Deb Willis’ iconic, ‘Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present’, with one of these images in the collection of the Museum of Fine Art Houston. Other photographic images from Facets of his 40 year oeuvre are in the collections of the Amon Carter Museum, Anacostia Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, Brooklyn Museum, and New York City Public Library’s Schomburg Collection.
An autodidactic visual artist Carl’s photographic career was spawned in 1979 capturing light-oriented imagery on still film, 6 by 8 foot moving molten glass and 20×40 foot dynamic laser illusions. His creative practice spans the gamut of the Art and Design disciplines and bridges the traditional and post-modern worlds of technologies traversing the boundaries of materials and processes.
“I was recently queried where I thought I ‘fit’ in the History of Photography. My feeling/observation is that I stand, in the medium of Photography, the way a prism stands in a beam of light, not at the beginning or the end, but at the point of refraction. Whereas Edgerton captured motion unseen by the eye, I work with the unseen itself, light-as-form-as-vibration, time as residue. I see my practice as a bridge between spiritual frequency, scientific seeing, and cultural perception. You could say I’m part of photography’s afterimage, what remains when the light has already passed through.”
In 2018 Carl along with actor/producer Sebastian Galasso founded Yanasa Creative Group as a vehicle to penetrate the film industry with his work. Their intent was to position the works as set dressing and special effects. This approach got the attention of Seann Lewis, CEO of SeannLewis.com a provider of innovative high tech solutions, whose interest was in developing an AR/VR education model.
“Yanasa sees Djinn’s pursuit of visual literacy as a model for how Art and its basic elements, light, color, pattern, texture, line, and form, can shape feeling, expand imagination, and transform learning.”, states CEO Sebastian Galasso. “It affirms our commitment to advancing the disciplines of photography, film, and the models of AR/VR education where visual literacy is central to how knowledge is shared.”
‘Reflections in Black: A Reframing’ runs from September 4 to October 15 at the Cooper Square Gallery, 20 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003.
