Explore the Zen-like power of photo minimalism

The main advice photographer David Fokos offers: “Focus.” (Aptly enough, he pronounces his name the same way.) Concentrate, he says, on the essence of the image, reducing or eliminating everything else. The San Diego based artist has been exhibited around the world, and his style is likened to visual haiku.

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#1 Please introduce yourself.
Hello, my name is David Fokos. I am a full-time photographic artist living in San Diego, California. I have been photographing with my 8×10 view camera for over 30 years, much of that time on Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the southeastern coast of Massachusetts.
My work, which is represented by 15 galleries on three continents, has been featured in over 40 solo exhibitions and can be found in the collections of many museums, corporations and private collectors.

#2 How did you get interested in photography?
My grandfather gave me my first camera — a Kodak Brownie — when I was 11 years old. Interestingly, rather than the usual sort of family holiday snapshots one might expect of an 11 year old, I was already showing an affinity for the landscape and a certain type of composition — taking pictures of the patterns found in the cobblestone streets, looming church spires, and zoomy perspectives along building facades.

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The San Francisco Fine Art Fair will take play May 17-20, 2012 at the Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco. More than 70 prominent galleries worldwide will be participating. Explore 50,000 sq. ft. of world-class art under one roof, ranging from paintings, works on paper, drawings, and printed editions to fine art photography, indoor and outdoor sculptures, and glass art.

http://www.sffineartfair.com/

By Thomas Shess

There is a pattern of passions in Fred Gemmell. He speaks with the enlightened energy of Julia Child; listen long enough and Gemmell might have you salivating over shapes, colors and exotic materials.

A passionate painter and a nascent gallery owner (his gallery participated in Art San Diego 2011), Gemmell is an engineer by degree, an architect by training, a furniture maker by trade and a legendary commercial and residential interior designer.

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WRITTEN BY IRENE LACHER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GREY CRAWFORD

One could sum up this contemporary home with a sweeping view of La Jolla Shores in a single word: Balance. The collaboration between architect William Hayer, of Hayer Architecture in Del Mar, and San Diego-based designer Fred Gemmell, of Matrix Design Studio, accomplishes a delicate dance between opposites: warm and cool materials, blustery nature and the serenity of home, husband and wife.

Indeed, when the couple–the owner of an investment company with offices in San Diego and Greenwich, Connecticute, and his wife, a full-time mother of four–came to the designers with a veritable tabula rasa, a vacant lot overlooking the Pacific Ocean, they presented a seemingly impossible task. The wife loved pure minimalism. “I could live in a cement box,” she jokes, but the husband wanted his living space to feel warm and inviting, not like a museum.

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BODY LINES by Shel. Jewelry| December 15, 2011 6-9pm | JETT GALLERY | 989 West Kalmia St. | San Diego, CA 92101

GEMMELL STUDIO and Shel. Jewelry invite you to an evening with San Diego jewelry designer Shelly Mantler to view the Shel. Jewelry winter collection. Shel. Jewelry will be fusing her sexy, exotic designs with the vivid and gravitating works of Fred Gemmell, Joey Vaiasuso and Susan Venable at Jett Gallery in downtown San Diego. Come enjoy cocktails and confections by San Diego patissiere Rheanna McKinzie.

|All artwork and jewelry will be available for purchase throughout the evening|

|10% of the proceeds from sales on opening night will be donated to San Diego’s Emilio Nares Foundation, helping low income families with children diagnosed with cancer|

OPENING RECEPTION NOVEMBER 18th 7:30-9:30pm | JETT GALLERY | 989 West Kalmia St. | San Diego, CA 92101

| MIHO Gastrotruck will be on site with their delicious gourmet street food for sale |

|10% of the proceeds from sales on opening night will be donated to our good friends at the Emilio Nares Foundation|