Posts made in February, 2010
BARBARA MYRIAM VENTURA
(Photo credit: Jokulsarlon, Iceland by Barbara Myriam Ventura)
I believe one must move beyond the dualistic concept of ‘an artist and his work’ in order to create and experience art in its essential timeless expression.
Photographer Barbara Myriam Ventura uses her work to embrace her distinct connection with water. Her image, Jokulsarlon, Iceland, was chosen by juror John Paul Caponigro for the Juror’s Selection in the Elements of Water exhibition. The sheer power of the image, which shows a wave crashing and flowing over glacial ice, represents water in its natural oceanic condition while also symbolically portraying the world’s rising global climate concerns.
Jokulsarlon, Iceland is a place where imagery is in a continual flow of eruption and change. The beauty, uniqueness, and diversity of the landscape inspire an intensity, which dramatically captures the attention, consumes all sense of separate being, and passionately seizes upon the awestruck heart to be One with itself.
More of Barbara’s work can be found at www.barbaraventura.com
Read MoreANIMALIA SHOWCASE
Are you interested in submitting your work for Animalia, the Center’s next Call for Entries? Today on PERSPECTIVES, we are showcasing featured artists from past exhibitions at the Center. While these 10 images come from many different exhibitions, and were selected by various jurors, they all “portray the diversity of the animal kingdom.”
For more information on this and other Calls for Entry at the Center, please visit the Calls for Entry section of PERSPECTIVES or go to http://www.c4fap.org. The juror for Animalia is Karen Irvine, the Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Best of luck to all entrants!
(Photo credit: A Small Trophy by Susan Worsham)
(Photo credit: Broken Wing by Susan Worsham)
(Photo credit: Lamb by Colleen Plumb)
(Photo credit: Dave and Flower by Derek Henderson)
(Photo credit: Molly and Elly May by Sarah Small)
(Photo credit: Cardinal Foot by Joyce P. Lopez)
(Photo credit: Resting by Ellen Rennard)
(Photo credit: Horse by Aline Smithson)
(Photo credit: Untitled by Angela Bacon-Kidwell)
(Photo credit: Anthony with Tiptoe, Streator, IL 2007 by Dave Jordano)
JUROR JOHN PAUL CAPONIGRO
(Photo credit: Ron, The Shower Series by Manjari S. Sharma)
With such a rich and complex theme it’s not surprising that the entries for this exhibit were so diverse. The images spanned the gamut of human responses to a single theme—documentary, graphic, impressionistic, clinical, avante-garde, romantic, personal … The results are a kaleidoscopic survey of possibilities.
The Center was honored to have photographer John Paul Caponigro as the juror for the “Elements of Water” exhibition, which is on display in the Center’s Main Gallery from February 19th to March 13th, 2010.
Juror’s Statement:
I welcomed the opportunity to jury this exhibit. The subject of water is near and dear to my heart. It has been and will remain a core element in all of my work.
Water is a fascinating and important subject with many dimensions to explore. With its ever-changing surface reflecting shimmering light and its crystalline depths that hold light within, water resembles a living thing. Water is the sustainer of life. We can survive only minutes without air, days without water, weeks without food. Though some organisms have adapted to living with extremely little water, without water life as we know it cannot exist. The blood in our bodies are chemically most similar to the waters of the ocean currents. The hydrologic cycle is the circulatory system of Gaia. Water is essential to wilderness and agriculture alike. Water use and access to clean water has become a growing global concern, and it will continue to become increasingly so. In a world where desertification, overpopulation, and health are acute issues, water availability, quality and use have become core issues. Water brings purification, renewal and fruition. It’s used in countless ancient spiritual practices and healing rites and in modern therapeutic treatments both physical and psychological. Water is entertaining. Who doesn’t like to play with and in water?
With such a rich and complex theme it’s not surprising that the entries for this exhibit were so diverse. The images spanned the gamut of human responses to a single theme—documentary, graphic, impressionistic, clinical, avante-garde, romantic, personal. This made it almost impossible to select images based on a single focus or to break them into groups of separate subthemes within the larger theme and at the same time evaluate images based on their strengths as individual images rather than illustrating a point. The results are a kaleidoscopic survey of possibilities.
There were approximately 5000 images submitted. Fully, half were unremarkable. The top 100 were remarkable. The top 50 better still. The top 25 even better. The top 10 truly exceptional. Singling out only 3 and 1 was tremendously challenging.
As much as I’ve tried to be balanced and fair, my personal sensibility is reflected in this selection, especially when selecting between closely matched candidates. I’m delighted there is a Director’s selection as well as a Juror’s selection. I agree with those selections and I’m delighted those images were also highlighted.
Looking at work intensely raises many questions.
- Does a good idea make a good picture?
- Does the relevance social concerns make up for, compliment, or overtake a good picture?
- Does clearly describing a person, place, thing, or event make a good picture?
- Does a strong graphic structure make a good picture?
- Does a strong emotional appeal make a good picture?
- Are decisive moments magic moments?
- How much is enough?
- How much is too much?
- How much is too little?
- How much do small flaws reduce core strengths?
- What are the core strengths of an image?
- How are core strengths combined with and modified by other elements?
- When does abstraction become suggestive or storied?
- How do those vary from image to image and artist to artist?
- Are there consistent strategies that work?
- Are the notable exceptions?
- Does the challenge presented by outliers reinforce or weaken what’s been found?
These are among a few of the questions I kept in mind while enjoying this work.
I invite you to do the same.
John Paul Caponigro is an artist, author, educator, and digital pioneer. John Paul is one of Canon’s Explorers of Light and an Epson’s Stylus Pro. He is a contributing editor for Digital Photo Pro and a columnist for PhotoshopUser and Apple.com. John Paul’s work has been published widely. Well respected as an authority on creativity and fine digital printing, John Paul teaches both privately in his studio and internationally at prominent workshops in North America. He also lectures frequently at universities, museums, and conferences. In 2002, Zoom Magazine named John Paul one of the 15 best artists of the past 30 years. In 2006, John Paul was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame.
Read MoreKELIY ANDERSON-STALEY
Today’s installment in the PERSPECTIVES “Following Up” Series features Queens, New York-based photographer Keliy Anderson-Staley. Her 8” x 10” wet plate collodion tintype portrait, Jessica, was selected by juror Mary Ellen Mark and exhibited in the Center’s Portraits exhibition in 2009. Most recently, she was selected for the 2010 Light Work Artists-in-Residence program.
(Photo credit: Jessica by Keliy Anderson-Staley)
My interest lies in finding the unique visual markers of personality and in portraying faces that reflect the diversity of contemporary America.
Anderson-Staley’s series, Americans, examines photographic representations and how portraiture has shaped and still constructs historical and contemporary identities. By working with hand-mixed chemistry and a wooden view camera, her time-intensive process resists the instant image capture capabilities that have become the common practice of today.
The series also questions the use of photographic titles in determining the historicity of an image. By removing conventional indicators of one’s identity—such as last name, year, and geographic location—each image title in this series includes only the sitter’s first name. Anderson-Staley discussed her chosen use of nomenclature by stating:
Although the heritage of the individual may be inferred from assumptions we make about features and costumes, the descriptive language that might have been attached to such images in the past is deliberately absent. The viewer is therefore forced to suspend the kind of thinking that would traditionally assist in decoding these images in the context of American identity politics.
More images from Anderson-Staley’s Americans series:
(Photo credit: Dulce by Keliy Anderson-Staley)
(Photo credit: Helen by Keliy Anderson-Staley)
(Photo credit: Jesse by Keliy Anderson-Staley)
New Work:
(Photo Credit: Keliy Anderson-Staley from the Off the Grid series)
Her series of color photographs, Off the Grid, was featured by Daylight Magazine as a video-cast and was a runner-up for the Aperture Portfolio Prize. It also appeared in Camerawork and will be featured in an upcoming issue of Ahorn Magazine.
More of Keliy’s work can be found at www.andersonstaley.com
Keliy Anderson-Staley received a BA from Hampsire College and an MFA from Hunter College. She has taught the wet plate collodian tintype process at Bowdoin College, Hampshire College, and The Center for Alternative Photography, among others. Her tintype portraits have been exhibited at the Bronx Museum of Art, the California Museum of Photography, Jenkins Johnson Gallery (in both New York and San Francisco), Susan Maasch Fine Art (Portland, ME) and John Cleary Gallery (Houston, TX), and The Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, CO). Some of her tintype images are part of a traveling group show centering on alternative and historic processes that is currently in transit from the University of New England Art Gallery to the Art Gallery at Simmons College in Boston.
Read MoreJAMES A. MEAUX
(Photo credit: James A. Meaux, 12/21/08-1/2/09)
By giving attention and thought to the mundane, I am able to understand and notice the things that I take for granted in the world.
James A. Meaux’s photomontage, 12/21/08 – 1/2/09, selected for the Center’s “New Visions” exhibition, is a step-by-step testimony of the photographer’s daily precedents. Hygiene, body image, popular culture, and nutrition are all interspersed throughout Meaux’s photographic matrix of time management. For Meaux, photographing his day-to-day routine provides “a clear experience of being.”
[By] keeping track of my daily routine I am able to focus on things that occur in the human experience such as consumption and materialism. Photographing everything that I consume, I begin to realize how much we consume in everyday life.
More of James’ work can be found at www.jamesameaux.com
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