CHAMOT GALLERY
chamot-gallery.com
          11 Woodview Terrace, Fayetteville NY 13066
         347-228-8890  charleschamot@yahoo.com

For Immediate Release, Please
Contact: Johanna Blue, 347-228-8890

CHAMOT GALLERY PRESENTS
“TWO ARTISTS NAMED RON” 

RON WALKER and RONALD SIMMONS

– The exhibit opens Saturday, November 11th, 6 to 9 p.m.  –

Nov 2, 2023 – CHAMOT GALLERY, first established in NYC in 1996 by artist and gallerist CHARLES CHAMOT, re-opened in Syracuse in November, 2022 and is winding up its first year here with its fifth and final exhibit for 2023. Word has spread quickly about this vibrant, eclectic and diverse new addition to the Syracuse Arts scene. “Two Artists Named Ron” featuring the work of Ron Walker and Ronald Simmons will have its opening night reception on Saturday, November 11th from 6 to 9 p.m. It is open to the public that night; afterwards, the show can be viewed by appointment through December 29th. CHAMOT GALLERY is located at 11 Woodview Terrace in Fayetteville. For further information, go to chamot-gallery.com or call 347-228-8890.
 
Were this a rock concert, Syracuse native Ronald Simmons would be the opening act. This “talented newcomer” (although he’s middle-aged) has been creating art since his teens, but he hasn’t sought public recognition until now. This exhibit showcases his works on paper using chiaroscuro and pastels. Simmons posits abstraction and geometry to investigate what he terms his “states of being to learn who he is, as well as who we are.” As attendees will see, his pictures have a darkness, weight and gravity, and what Chamot calls “a fair honesty.”

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The show’s headliner is Ron Walker, a native of Liverpool, England who was a pioneering photographer and architect in London and New York City from the 1970s to his untimely death in 2006 at the age of 59. Walker and Chamot were close friends and creative kindred spirits for many years, and the artist/gallerist is committed to preserving his friend’s worthy legacy.

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Ron Walker’s photos were extensively exhibited in England, the U.S., Switzerland, West Germany, France and Belgium. He spent the last five years of his life in Manhattan and described his work there as an attempt to “give visual definition to the energy and pulse of Manhattan” – which he achieved through timing, lighting and chemistry in the depiction of his visions as they and he evolved. As Walker further explained, “I have combined painted images with light traces in an attempt to generate a free flow of color and space…to photograph the imagined rather than the observed.”

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In addition to some of these photos, this exhibit also includes Walker’s portraits of renowned artist David Hockney that have never been seen until now. During Walker’s travels across the U.S. in the ‘70s, when he landed in Los Angeles he sought out the artist, a Liverpool landsman, and they hung out together for a day with Walker’s camera clicking – a Pentax Spotmatic F, with which he did all his work. The exhibit also includes some of Walker’s many C-Prints, architectural drawings and colorful graphic gauches.

 

Walker’s photography was greatly influenced by his architectural work. As he explained, “My architectural background has developed my sense of design and finely tuned my awareness of space 
and colour. Movement plays an important role in my pictures, often illuminating an emotional ambiguity of which I am fond. The human subjects of my pictures do not dominate the landscape but rather serve as eerie props to a graphic stage set.” But Walker’s architectural career was no stage set. He worked directly with Sir Norman Foster in London and I.M. Pei in New York, working solo and in concert on major commercial, residential and cultural institution constructions. 

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Among Ron Walker’s many notable photography exhibits were those at Chamot’s previous galleries, as well as those at the Foto Gallery, Wilcov Goldfedder Gallery and Walden International Galleries in New York; the Harringay Arts Center, East End Gallery and Photographers Gallery in London; the Museum of Art & History and Nikon Gallery in Switzerland; and the Cultural Centrum in Brussels. 

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CHARLES CHAMOT’s talent and taste were consistently exhibited in his three previous galleries in D.U.M.B.O. Brooklyn and Jersey City, NJ. He was born in Lima, Peru and brought up in NYC, Chile and Peru. Chamot is self-taught in a variety of artistic formats. He has lived and exhibited in 14 cities in the U.S., as well as England, Morocco, Peru, France and Spain.