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BIOGRAPHY
Jonathan Gelber has been taking photographs since he was 8 years old. Born and raised in Italy to an engineer father and an actor mother, he already had his own dark room at the age of 11, where he wasted paper and chemistry but was learning the process. In his senior year of high school he was either skiing or in the darkroom experimenting with different printing techniques.
Jonathan studied fine arts at the University of New Mexico then later received a BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. He began his professional career in Milan where he lived for 5 years and shot editorials for Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Man among others. His assignments took him to various countries in Europe, S. Africa, S. America and the United States. Later he lived in Bogota, Colombia where he had the opportunity to travel throughout the Caribbean shooting women’s fashion. Upon moving to Miami in 1997, he began shooting more advertising while starting a 2 year relationship with Maxim Mexico. His work has appeared in Maxims throughout the world. During the years of shooting fashion and advertising, Jonathan continued his personal portfolio exploring the female body.
Jonathan was inspired from an early age by the women of Lucien Clergue and Helmut Newton. While at Art Center he had the opportunity of taking workshops with both of his childhood idols. He continues to be motivated by contemporary artists such as Deborah Turbeville, Liz Young and Harry Schatz. He has exhibited his work in Louisiana and California and self published a book of his photos of women shot in the deep south.
ARTIST STATEMENT
CONTAINED
"With the most recent series of photographs, I have set myself a challenge: to shoot in one limiting location, using only available light, forcing me to push the compositions to generate movement, tension and energy in an industrial and unsympathetic environment. I am interested in contrasts: the cold metal interior of a shipping container versus the warmth of a body, the curves of the model against the hard parallel lines of the walls, a delicate female model and the strength and tension in her poses. These juxtapositions create movement and polarity in the photographs. By working with the grain of the photographs, I am exploring the contradiction of how the images are seen. From afar, the images are seen with a high degree of definition. When moving in closer, the photographs lose their details and reveal the process. The clarity with the images occurs from a distance whereas up close the viewer becomes intimately immersed in their elemental nature."
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