Photo Synthesis

“Conversations in the Garden,” an exhibit featuring the stellar work of creative duo Carol Panaro-Smith and James Hajicek, has been on our radar since we viewed the press release. Why? Because, every art piece we’ve ever seen the two make both individually and together is beautiful and original.

For “Conversations,” the two East Phoenix artists collaborated to create a stirring show of photogenic drawings (the process can be traced back to 1802). Panaro-Smith and Hajicek dug up plants from the ground or collected green wildlife from the sea, then exposed the botany on photosensitive paper, resulting in imagery that’s a cross between a negative that’s been contact-printed and an idiosyncratic shaky-hand drawing. Cool stuff.