NATURAL SPIRIT
THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF
ROMAN LORANC
Roman Loranc was born in Bielsko-Biala, Poland and defected to the United States in 1981. In 1984 he moved to California, and not long after developed a love for the Central Valley, finding elegance in its fragile wetlands and ancient oaks, rural back roads and farms.
This retrospective exhibition includes more than 60 photographs by Loranc, many of which capture the beauty of the Central Valley and northern California. More recent photographs taken while traveling through Europe are also included.
Loranc’s photographs are firmly grounded in the Romantic Movement in art where nature assumes a dynamic and spiritual presence in our lives. At the same time, he is immersed in the California landscape tradition of Ansel Adams where a passion for beauty is fused with a passion for preserving the wilderness. Clarity, depth, rich tones and exquisitely rendered light are among the hallmarks of Loranc’s works, as they were for Adams. And like Adams, he visually communicates a reverence for the land and a desire to preserve it. Yet his photographs are profoundly personal and uniquely his own.
Using a 4 x 5 Linhof film camera, he searches for the ideal vantage points for his photographs, then patiently waits for the moment when land, weather, and light come together for the image he has envisioned. These waits often begin early in the morning in soft winter fogs and poor weather conditions. The resulting landscapes, however, are evocative and awe-inspiring. Technically flawless, they reveal a spiritual quality present in the land.
“No photographer has captured the unique character of the Central Valley like Roman Loranc,” says Jeani Ferrari, president of the Board of Directors of the Carnegie Arts Center, “And, no one has focused on the farmland as he has.” Loranc has consistently received high praise in the media for his photographs. Jack Fischer, writing for the Mercury News, said of Loranc, “Ansel Adams may have had no equal in photographing most of California’s natural beauty, but he met his match in the Central Valley…. After one extended visit, Adams (said), ‘It might be rich, but it ain’t attractive.’ It would take 50-odd years and the eyes of an outsider to prove Adams wrong.” Shawn O'Sullivan in Black and White Magazine wrote, “There is a point in the creative process where a personal journey meets the road traveled by everyman--the crossroad where art becomes universal. Roman Loranc, Polish born, has traveled far to find his landscape--the Central Valley of California.” “A mighty showing of delicate and forceful places, of mythic landscapes and abstract compositions,” writes Jules Masterjohn for The Durango Telegraph.
Award winning monographs featuring Loranc's photographs include Fractal Dreams: Photographs From Two Decades, Two-Hearted Oak, and his latest, Absolution, which received a United States 2013 Literary Award for excellence in Fine Art, stating "for twenty years Roman Loranc has found rare beauty in the urban and rural landscapes of Europe and America, and his new book is a testament to the purity and strength of his creative genius."
His works are in the collections of the Denver Art Museum; George Eastman House in Rochester, NY; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California; and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, France.
The exhibition was organized by the Carnegie Arts Center, Turlock, CA.
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