You're Invited To Opening Reception For Roosevelt Island Photographer Christophe Avril's Exhibit At Roosevelt Island Resident Paul Calendrillo Chelsea Art Gallery May 31 - From New York To Route 66 To The West: A Pictorial History

Roosevelt Island resident Christophe Avril is exhibiting a collection of his photography at the Chelsea Paul Calendrillo New York Art Gallery beginning May 31 - June 29. You're invited to the opening reception May 31 from 6-8 PM.

Christophe Avril

From New York to Route 66 to the West: A Pictorial History

May 31- June 29, 2018

Opening Reception May 31st, 6pm - 8pm

Paul Calendrillo New York

547 West 27th St. New York, NY 10001 Suite 600

Mr. Calendrillo previously owned an art Gallery on Roosevelt Island's Main Street that closed in April 2017

and hoped to remain on Roosevelt Island in a new location but was not able to secure new space from Hudson Related.

Mr. Avril's exhibit at the Chelsea Paul Calendrillo New York Gallery is titled:

 From New York to Route 66 to the West: A Pictorial History

According to Mr. Avril:

Growing up in France, my first interest with the image world was looking through magazines that were hanging everywhere in our small flat, magazines like: L’Ecran, Cinémonde, Life and Vogue, and by watching the black and white TV with all the American movies. This is when I discovered the American west with John Ford movies filmed in Monument Valley and other places in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Everything looked so big. Also, I loved the television series that made me travel to America, The Little House in the Prairie, Bonanza, Route 66, Wanted Dead or Alive and Daniel Boone.

Later on, I discovered still photography and very rapidly fell in love with this art. Photographers like, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, or Helmut Newton and the Americans, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange or Annie Leibovitz made me want to become a photographer.

But my all-time inspirational photographers whom I appreciate without trying to copy are artists like Robert Doisneau , Ansel Adams, Edward S. Curtis, American writer, John Steinbeck with The Grapes of Wrath, Jack London with his novels that describe the life of the people during the gold rush and James Albert Michener and his great books; Alaska, Texas and The People and the Land. They all motivated me to travel all over the US.

New York, the Big, Apple, the city that never sleeps, with its high skyscrapers and its distinctive boroughs, is a great source of inspiration. While walking year round, no matter the season or weather, I always think of what I used to imagine about this “world symbol” before coming here for the first time. Being here I remembered back to my childhood in front of my French TV where I dreamt of taking pictures like Robert Doisneau who photographed Paris.

I traveled two thousand four hundred and eighty-eight miles of getting my kicks on Route 66 from Chicago to L.A. Going through eight states across America was certainly the best way to travel into the past. From prohibition in Chicago, the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma and during the Great Depression and the migration of farmers who traveled with all their goods to the promise land of California for a better life and to seek jobs, land, dignity, and a future, and along the Main Streets of America, I was able to live and enjoy beautiful historical buildings, diners and old rusty cars

from the 1950’s and 1960’s. It was a journey that at times made me believe that I was living in another time.

The West is immense. The great plains with their bison’s, the Mojave Desert in California, the big National Parks, the coast and the great Rockies Mountains are dream places for me--land that I discovered first with Ansel Adams and Edward S. Curtis, long before I came to America. Places like Monument Valley with the sound of the wind and the hot sun caressing my face, and the limitless view that can let one’s imagination travel and sometime make me wish that I could have been born here and lived a “western life”.

With my photograph’s, I try to reflect what I see, but also what I smell and feel. I hope people will see what I see, but as Ansel Adams said,: “There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.”

More info at Paul Calendrillo New York.