Sumo! Photograph - Limited Edition of 10

Jerry Shevick’s photography is rooted in the Buddhist concept of impermanence and, even more specifically, Wabi Sabi. Wabi Sabi is difficult to translate—it’s more of a feeling than an actual concept; however, it implies simplicity and beauty as something ages, fades or changes. The perfectly imperfect. Jerry has been photographing and printing for the last 40 years. In fits and starts, over the last decade, he has begun to exhibit and sell his work. In 2013, pieces from his series, “And The Past Reared Its Head” were juried into a number of shows and sold, which prompted a more serious approach to his artwork. The series took vintage slides from Jerry’s past, as well as from many others, and through a process of re-shooting and re-imagining the photograph, looks at the impermanence of the image, of time, of family, of life. A follow-up show used vintage, amateur nudes in the same way. A review in Fabric Magazine said, “What looks like the faded slides of one prolific, if amateur photographer, is really Shevick’s heavily curated pickings of found objects in the photo sections of flea markets and estate sales that he’s culled and rephotographed in a fresh, innovative way. The result is a re-framing of the entire experience in a campy, post-modern, tongue in cheek show.” Further projects came. There is the on-going series of “Night”: subtle, almost abstract, Zen-like photos of the natural world at night, printed on Japanese mulberry paper. Handheld with slow exposures, they evoke the quiet and beauty of walking through nature after dark. “The Other Worlds of Death Valley” was the result of a journey to one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. But, the work became big and bold in color and structure, revealing an otherworldly landscape in its ancient beauty. Jerry is now back to exploring black and white landscapes, the kind of work he began in. And, while now working digitally, the prints are worked very much in mind with silver printing. For most of his career, Jerry was an entertainment executive, running a division of Hearst Communications and then founding his own company, Shevick*Zupon Entertainment. He created or supervised over 1,500 episodes of non-fiction programming, winning a number of awards along the way. He was also the production executive on 50 made for television movies.