Exhibitions

Photosynthesis XV | Student Online Exhibition

Posted on August 8, 2020

PhotoSynthesis XV is a collaboration of the Burlington High School and Winchester High School facilitated by the Griffin Museum of Photography. This creative student exhibition is online through August 30th here at the Griffin.

By creating photographic portraits of themselves and their surroundings, students from Burlington High School and Winchester High School have been exploring their sense of self and place in a unique collaborative program at the Griffin Museum.

In its fifteenth year, the 5-month program connects approximately 20 students – from each school – with each other and with professional photographers. The goal is to increase students’ awareness of the art of photography, as well as how being from different programs and different schools affects their approach to the same project.

The students were given the task of creating a body of work that communicates a sense of self and place. They were encouraged to explore the importance of props, the environment, facial expression, metaphor, and body language in portrait photography.

Mentors for the PhotoSynthesis program this year were Suzanne Révy and Bill Franson. See their bios below. With the pandemic we had to eliminate the final exhibition that culminates in the Main Gallery of the museum and the one on one critiques that Alison Nordstrom, former photography curator of the George Eastman House, has done for 14 years. See Dr. Nordstrom’s bio below. We added an installation for photo students onto the Photoville Fence in Winchester and also have provided a virtual exhibition on our exhibition our website.

Rory Golden – BHS

Piper Ladd – BHS

Kacey Pustizzi – BHS

Bridget Conceison – BHS

Amanda Tsai – WHS

Anna Robinson – WHS

Audrey Fitzgerald – WHS

Beaujena Stoyanchev – WHS

Beaujena Stoyanchev – WHS

Kaitlin Collins – WHS

Kathryn Degnan – WHS

Lulu Girotti – WHS

Mackenzie Murray – WHS

Molly Bannon – WHS

Nicole Mazzeo – WHS

Seamus Slattery – WHS

Sophie Farnhill – WHS

Valerie Ngo – WHS

Vivian Zander – WHS

Students met with mentors Suzanne Révy in November and Bill Franson in February.

After graduating from high school in Los Angeles, Suzanne Révy (b. 1962) moved to Brooklyn, NY and earned a BFA in photography from the Pratt Institute where she was immersed in making and printing black and white photographs. She studied with Phil Perkis, Bill Gedney, Ann Mandlebaum, Christine Osinski, and Judy Linn among others. Following art school she worked as a photography editor for U.S.News & World Report magazine in Washington, DC and later as acting picture editor for Yankee magazine in Dublin, NH.With the arrival of two sons, she left the world of publishing and began to make pictures of her children, their cousins, and friends rekindling her interest in making and printing black and white pictures in a traditional wet darkroom. The resulting monochrome series, Time Let Me Play is an exploration of the nature and culture of childhood and childhood play. A second portfolio, To Venerate the Simple Days, was made using a simple plastic camera with color film; it pictured the time spent during the summers with her pre-teen aged children. The images represent an emotional response to that brief moment between childhood and adulthood. She continued to work with color film in the final series of visual family diaries, I Could Not Prove the Years Had Feet. This last portfolio was begun while earning her MFA in photography from the New Hampshire Institute of Art, and it chronicled the shifts and changes of her growing boys as they navigated their teen years.

While pursuing her MFA, she was mentored by photographers a Cheryle St. Onge, a former professor Christine Osinski, Edie Bresler, Stephen Dirado, and independent curator Francine Weiss. Anticipating the imminent departure of her children, she also turned her attention to the mundane in a series of mobile phone images featured in A Certain Slant of Light, which led to an interest in making landscape diptychs and triptychs using medium format and color film seen in a work in progress tentatively titled A Murmur in the Trees.

Her work has been shown at the Newport Art Museum in Newport, RI, the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA, the Fitchburg Art Museum in Fitchburg, MA, the Danforth Art Museum, and the Garner Center Gallery at the New England School of Photography among others. She is on the faculty of the Institute of Art and Design at New England College and the Associate Editor for the online magazine What Will You Remember?

Bill Franson worked as a staff photographer at several production houses in the Boston area until going out on his own in the mid 90s. Clients include Johnson & Johnson Innovations, Polaris Venture Partners, Paul Russell and Co., Classic Cars Magazine UK, Childrens’ Hospital-Boston, Brigham and Womens’ Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, Lahey Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital, The Peabody Essex Museum, The Boston Globe, Genuine Interactive, and The Governors Academy. He’s exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in Massachusetts, Michigan, New York and NYC, New Hampshire, Vermont, Virginia, Texas, and Toronto Canada. Personal highlights have been the Danforth Museum New England Photographers Biennial in 2015, 2011, and 2003, Strange Days at Philips Exeter in 2015, A Nickel and a Kopek at the NESOP Center for Photographic Exhibitions in 2008, Calvin College in 2011, and Panopticon Gallery in 2013. His work resides in various institutional and private collections.

In 2006 New England School of Photography offered Bill a teaching position. He never looked back. Teaching has reconnected him with those who are passionate about image making and actively exploring its possibilities. He taught his last class at NESOP in their 2019 Spring semester, finishing up two days before the school announced that it will close in 2020.

He is currently a professor of photography at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. and is represented by Gallery Kayafas in Boston.

Alison Nordstrom, the former curator of the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y., and photographer Sam Sweezy usually gather with students for a one-on-one discussion of their work and a final edit was created for the exhibition at the museum. This year the critique and the exhibition were cancelled due to the pandemic and social distancing requirements. As student couldn’t access the darkrooms the teachers Robert Gillis and Lexi Djordjevic worked independently from home with students and developed projects and created powerpoint presentations. These have been created as reduced pdf’s to present on-line for our public. Our regrets to these students that they have had such losses this school year. I hope they know we are still watching out for them.

“In collaboration and through creative discourse these students have grown,” said Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director of the Griffin Museum. “We are very pleased to be able to share this year’s students’ work. We thank the mentors and teachers for providing a very meaningful experience for the students. We also want to thank the Griffin Foundation and the John and Mary Murphy Educational Foundation, whose continued commitment over the past 15 years to this project made learning possible. To paraphrase Elliot Eisner, the arts enabled these students to have an experience that they could have from no other source.’’

July Photo Chat Chat | Member’s Exhibition Edition

Posted on July 16, 2020

Join us Thursday night July 16th for a chat with four artists participating in our 26th Annual Member’s Exhibition, curated by Alexa Dilworth.

Yorgos Efthymiadis

There Is a Place I Want to Take You I had an unsettling feeling when I returned, for the very first time after many years abroad, to the place of my origin. Even though I was surrounded by loved ones, friends and family who were ecstatic to see me, there was a sense of non-belonging. After a couple of days of catching up and hanging out, they returned to their routines. I stopped being their center of attention and became a stranger in a foreign land. It was harsh to come home, to a place which I banished in the past, only to realize that I have been banished in return. Time leaves its mark, transforms places, and alters people. Even the smallest detail can make a huge difference to the way things were. After moving away, I had to rediscover what I have left behind. Using my memories as a starting point, I walked down the road that led to my high school, I lay on the sand at the beach, close to the house where I grew up, I nodded to a familiar face I couldn’t quite place and yet they smiled back. All these round-trip tickets to the past, to a place that I once used to belong, reminded me one of Henry Miller’s quotes that always resonated with me: “One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”

Leslie Jean-Bart

Have always found great comfort in or by the ocean.

The ocean has become the anchor for my current series, Reality & Imagination.

This ongoing series is a body of work of over 100 images that were edited from hundreds of images shot over the past 8 years. The images are squarely rooted in the tradition of Elliott Erwitt, Jay Maisel, Eugene Smith, Lou Draper, and sport photography. They are basically as they are in the instant shot.

I photograph the tide as visual metaphor to explore the dynamic interaction which takes place between the cultures when one lives permanently in a foreign land.

The cultures automatically interact with each other in a motion that is instantly fluid and turbulent, just as the sand and tide. It’s a constant movement in unison where each always retains its distinctive characteristics. This creates a duality that is always present.

The current climate towards immigrants in the US and the present migrant situation in Europe shows that the turbulent interaction between the duality created by the mix of the two cultures does not only manifest itself within the foreign individual but also within that foreign land.

Each of the sections of ‘Reality & Imagination’ explores this cultural duality. The section ‘Silhouette & Shadow’ and ‘Silhouette & Shadow Too’ I give an actual shape to the two cultures as silhouette & shadow, which are both entities that cannot exist without the presence of another. Just as the sand and the tide, a silhouette & or a shadow constantly moves in unison with the object the projected light uses to create it. In that instance, both the object and the shadow always retain each their individual characteristics.

‘Silhouette & Shadow Too’ addresses the phase where immigrants are visible to the dominant society only in limited capacity when needed, and the fact that the potential of enriching the society at large is short circuited.

Personally, the series has permitted me to readily welcome what’s good from both (all cultures in fact) and to let go from each what does not serve me as a human being. It has facilitated me to see at times what’s not readily seen as well as to be at times more present in life. It has given me the understanding that at every point I have the opportunity to act by choosing from within the structures of one of the two cultures what would serve best at that moment.

The constant intermingling of that duality is ever present.

Loli Kantor

For Time Is No Longer Now: A Tale of Love, Loss and Belonging My mother Lola died in Paris on January 21, 1952, after giving birth to me. My father Zwi died in Tel Aviv of a heart attack, March 1966 when I was 14 years old. My brother Ami died of a cardiac arrest in New York City on Thanksgiving Day, 1998. My immediate family: grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts and uncles perished in the Holocaust. My missing family created deep holes in my life—holes so deep that I have been driven to fill them in through a comprehensive and sometimes fevered search. Studying the archives of my family which I collected and saved through my life I uncover facts and information about my mother my father and my brother that help me to better understand their stories. I travel to the places from which my parents came, to where I was born and my mother died, to where I grew up and to times I barely remember, and even before. This is the soul of my work.These are visual disclosures including historical photographs, letters and documents, as well as new photographic works which I created to insert myself into the story of my lost family.

Geralyn Shukwit

For the past nine years, Brooklyn-based photographer Geralyn Shukwit has traveled the backroads of Bahia, Brazil, returning to the same communities year after year to form relationships with the families who reside there. O Tempo Não Para, Portuguese for “time does not stop,” is a personal documentation of those interactions and observations, a poetic record of Bahian life that prevails despite economic and environmental hardships. One of 26 states in Brazil, Bahia has a population of about 14 million in a region approximately the size of Texas. The Portuguese named it “Bahia” (“bay”) in 1501 after first entering the region through the bay where its capital, Salvador, is now located. An agricultural community, Bahians reside primarily in the cities and towns on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, where the weather is slightly more forgiving than in Bahia’s harsh, arid interior region, the Sertão. Bahia has one of the highest rates of poverty in the country; mothers often have to fish to feed her children and in many communities, water only arrives by truck. Mostly of mixed European and African lineage, Bahians are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, and many practice the rituals of Umbanda, Candomblé, and other syncretist religious sects. Cloaked in Bahia’s unique light, Shukwit’s intimate portrayal of daily life in Bahia offers viewers distinctly quiet, in-between moments laden with profundity. Underpinning the collective power of O Tempo Não Para is the photographer’s acute ability to cultivate trust and develop close connections with community members. Set in the extraordinarily colorful landscape of Bahia, a contrasting palette of bright, cool and warm colors, each photograph leaves traces of a culture seeped in the rituals and traditions that bind them.

Saba Sitton | Griffin Online Interview

Posted on July 14, 2020

We contacted Saba Sitton to ask her more questions about her journey in life and her photography. Below you will find her bio and her artist statement. You can see her work Journeys in Between and Distances Near Away in our Critic’s Pick Gallery.

Saba, thank you so much for taking the time to answer some of our questions for our audience. I enjoyed meeting you in Houston at Fotofest this past March. Can you talk a bit about “the present day Persian diaspora” for you and your family that you mention in your statement?

I think the experience of being part of a diaspora is different for each person, but I believe there are some common threads. For example, I feel that many from my parents’ generation have always hoped that one day they could return home. For me, home is more nuanced; the concept of home is somewhere between the two cultures, and the intricacies of that, is at the core of my creative work.

You talk about transitory instances where your present recalls the past. Can you speak about what that means to you?

For an immigrant or an exile, there is always some degree of longing for one’s place of origin. This sense of longing does not undermine or overwhelm one’s being. It is just a part of one’s existence. Sometimes a familiar scent, a familiar shape, or a gentle breeze on a summer’s afternoon, can recall a similar experience from the past. These transitory instances of time, while not easy to define, are moments when one’s awareness is threaded between the present and a similar moment remembered from the past. It is these transitory moments that inspire and inform much of my work.

I love the words you use to describe your work and journey. One phrase especially is the “poetics of migration” and “stories of exile”. Can you talk about this in reference to your work?

Over the years, I have come to know many who live in exile, and others who have migrated to different countries around the world. I have heard stories of hope, of loss, of struggle, of longing, and of reconciliation. We are all on a journey. Some journeys are more layered, others have great contrast. I often think of my work as visual poems, and these are the poetics that find their way into my work.

What does the flower mean to you in your photographs? It seems to me that the flower is a constant. Why flowers? Do you personally identify with the flower?

The flower has a special reverence in Persian culture. Throughout history, Persians have always prided themselves in their magnificent flower gardens. In Persian poetry, a flower symbolizes life’s beauty and fragility. A bouquet of flowers is considered a precious gift symbolizing life and renewal. In my work, a flower becomes a visual metaphor for a sense of connection with a remembered past and culture.

How do you use poetry with your work?

The poems that I use in my work are written by contemporary Persian poets. Persian culture has a strong history of poetry and celebrated poets. The culture has embraced poetry as a powerful carrier of ideas. The poetry in my work is an accompanying voice. Beyond the voice, the poems are also an integral element woven into the visual presence of the piece.

Is your use of color in your photographs deliberate. Reds are predominant in your work. I see reds holding such richness and strength. Can you talk about what the colors you use mean to you?

Color has always been an important part of my work. I often work with colors intuitively. But there are times when I use colors deliberately. For example, in my work, I often reference colors that are revered by the Persian culture like certain shades of blue, turquoise, and yellow. Intuitively, I am drawn to certain colors, like the color red. These colors, in all their variations, embody certain expressive qualities that I am looking for in my work.

Can you tell us about Ten by Ten: Ten Reviewers Select Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place 2018, FotoFest 2020 Biennial as so many of us missed it due to the pandemic.

The Ten by Ten exhibition showcased the work of ten artists whose work was selected by ten international reviewers from the FotoFest 2018 Meeting Place. The selected work was very diverse and displayed a richness of ideas and approaches. My series, Journeys in-Between, was one of the selected portfolios. The exhibition was well received by the community and it was an honor to have been a part of it. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the exhibition closed early. I believe FotoFest is planning to reopen the exhibition at a later date when it will be safe to open it to the public.

What work are you thinking about doing now?

I am always photographing life around me. I often explore new locations in search of images that embody a quality of expression that I am after. I work with these photographs, along with poems, and other materials to create my work. Today, the pandemic has changed so much of our everyday experiences. I am exploring new ways to produce my work with an awareness of today’s challenges.

Is there something I haven’t asked you that you would like to talk about for our audience?

I hope this interview will help reveal additional insights into my work. I want to thank you for this opportunity to discuss my work with you and with your audience.

Artist Statement

My work explores the transitory instances of time when one’s awareness is threaded between the present and a similar moment remembered from the past. At times, these threaded moments have hard juxtapositions due to differences from the change of context, the passage of time, or a change of place. Other times, they blend and fuse a sense of continuity that are more fluid and often share a moment of contemplation. Oftentimes my work is a reflection on the poetics of migration and the stories of exile. As an Iranian-American artist, my work is informed by idealized landscapes and intricate designs of early Persian art. Persian miniature paintings are adorned with intricate depictions of flowers, plants, and tightly woven patterns of imaginary gardens. In Persian poetry, a flower often symbolizes a fleeting moment, a poetic remembrance

of life’s transience and fragility. In my work, a flower becomes a visual metaphor for a sense of connection with a remembered past. I often include poems in my work. These poems become an accompanying voice within the work. Sometimes the poems echo a sense of hope or longing, other times they evoke a sense of disorientation or doubt, as might be felt by an immigrant or an exile, on a life’s journey, of being in-between.

Bio

Saba Sitton is part of the present day Persian diaspora. Her work explores transitory instances of time, either shared or solitary, visceral or recalled. Originally from Tehran, and having lived in Asia, Europe and the United States, Saba has firsthand experience living between cultures, languages, and traditions. Her work is often influenced by Persian art and literature as experienced and shared in a modern multicultural society. Saba studied art and design at the California Institute of the Arts and the University of Oregon where she received her MFA. She

has worked on art and design commissions, and has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions. Most recently, Saba’s work was on exhibit at the Ten by Ten: Ten Reviewers Select Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place 2018, FotoFest 2020 Biennial, and will be a part of the upcoming exhibition The Blue Planet, at H2 – Center for Contemporary Art, Glass palace, Kunstsammlungen und Museen, Augsburg, Germany. Saba lives in the United States and spends her time between California and Texas.

Photoville’s Fence comes to Winchester

Posted on June 17, 2020

The Photoville FENCE is coming to Winchester from June 20, 2020 until the week of August 24, 2020.
Coming to see the Fence? Print out the map and artist locations before you come.

This 8th edition of The Photoville FENCE in Winchester is unlike any past exhibition of this year-round public photography project, including the exhibitions we and others have presented on the fences of SoWA and around Boston over the years. This exhibition will take the form of Photo-Xs with a 10-foot diameter, one of Photoville’s customizable, modular and transportable systems to exhibit photography indoors and outdoors. In the largest display of Photo-Xs, fifteen of these structures will be distributed throughout our Winchester Cultural District. Our installation is one of 13 installation sites in the United States and Canada.

We brought this exhibition to Winchester to celebrate our town becoming a cultural district, and because Winchester is an epicenter for photography. Though Winchester does not have the fencing required for the usual Photoville FENCE exhibition, its plentiful public spaces provide an opportunity for a one-of-a-kind exhibition that connects the town through photography and visual stories.

With this outdoor exhibition, our public gets to experience our town and its cultural institutions and businesses through a nice manageable walk and a scavenger hunt type journey. These installations are all ADA compliant. Masks and social distancing are required during these times. We ask visitors not to touch the installations for sanitary reasons and please maintain 6 feet of social distance.

The photographers of the 8th Edition of the Photoville FENCE and the New England Regional Showcase will be on view beginning June 20, 2020. We will install on June 17/18, 2020. A selection of photographs from the Winchester and Burlington High Schools will also be showcased on the Photo-Xs.

The Photoville FENCE exhibition was planned to open alongside a festival involving the cultural institutions of Winchester on June 20, 2020. The Festival would have been free for the public as well with advanced ticketing. Due to the virus we can not be able to move forward with a live festival. We will plan a virtual festival during the installation.

See two example photographs of the X’s from Photoville Fence in Winchester 8th edition.

An event and exhibition like this takes a village to produce. Our village includes the people of Photoville the photographers from all over the world who submitted to The Photoville FENCE, and the scores of jurors who reviewed this massive international project. On a local level, the Griffin Museum of Photography has such gratitude for Mary McKenna, AIA, LEED AP, Chair of the Winchester Cultural District whose vision and persistence kept us on track. We thank Lisa Wong, the Town Manager of Winchester, for her foresight and feedback. We thank the Winchester Cultural District and the Mass Cultural Council for funding, along with the Arthur Griffin Foundation (no relation to the Griffin Museum) and the Winchester Cultural Council. We also want to thank Ms. Levatino and Ms. Djordjevic of Winchester High School and Burlington High School for their organization and scanning efforts. Lastly, but not least at all, our gratitude goes to the interns for the Photoville FENCE from Winchester High School led by Mary McKenna. The map shown above was produced by Nathan Shepard of Winchester High School. This village wouldn’t be complete without our great public. We hope you will visit our town’s installation of the Photoville FENCE in Winchester.

Submissions are currently open for the 9th edition of The Photoville FENCE, which will be displayed in 9 cities between summer 2020 and summer 2021. Visit the website for details and to submit: fence.photovile.com

Any questions? Let us know. Visiting the Photoville FENCE in Winchester is free for all. Masks are manditory in public spaces during these times. Take out food for lunch or dinner in our many business establishments set up to control social distancing with established protocols. Shop our stores using social distancing protocols as well. Visit the Griffin Museum of Photography when we open, observing our social distancing protocols and using masks. All are welcome here when we finally open.

Check out the Winchester Star Article on the Photoville Fence in Winchester.

See the article in What Will You Remember by Suzanne Révy.

Press release for the Photoville Fence in Winchester.

PARTNERS

Ryan Zoghlin | Lacus Plasticus

Posted on June 17, 2020

The Griffin Museum of Photography is pleased to announce a new exhibition from artist Ryan Zoghlin. Known for his use of alternative photographic processes, Zoghlin has created a series blending creativity, science, technology and the environment building a fanciful series call Lacus Plasticus.

plastic under black — “lacus plasticus 27”, © Ryan Zoghlin

Many artists look to our surroundings to explore their creativity, and Zoghlin has found that inspiration off the shores of Lake Michigan. Repurposing plastics to create unique underwater environments using the light of the sun with the Photogram process, these one of a kind images tell the story of a natural habitat from unnatural sources.

Hanging in our Atelier Gallery, Lacus Plasticus is a creative adventure of exploration.

royal plastic — “lacus plasticus 31”, © Ryan Zoghlin

In anticipation of his Artist Talk happening Thursday June 18th, we asked Ryan a few questions about his work.

Your whole body of work seems to come from a place of art as object, that each piece is unique and handmade. What drew you to use alternative and historic processes to complete your vision?

“Porthole 1′, © Ryan Zoghlin

I have always been interested in the perceived power of objects. Rabbits feet for luck or an evil eye to ward off bad luck. Even more so with personal objects. Objects owned by lost relatives or the famous seem to have greater gravity. I used to collect daguerreotype cases. Most had portraits in them. How important these pieces must have been to those who knew the folks photographed. Now their value is mostly in the case. The power of these images has been greatly diminished by the loss of personal attachment over time. For me the process I choose is one that I think will best support the subject. I also love to see the hand of the artist in the work. Historical processes lend themselves to this better. I am not against contemporary ways of image capture at all. For my aesthetic, though, I find there are instances where I see it as too perfect.

How did you decide on the photogram process for Lacus Plasticus?

“lacus plasticus 23”, © Ryan Zoghlin

A previous series of work I did titled “Bagged” was done as cyanotype photograms also. These pieces where made to document objects organized in clear plastic storage bags. The shadows created very three dimensional reproductions of the objects in the bag. With Lacus Plasticus, I wanted to be able to translate the plastic pieces’ dimensionality onto the flat paper.

I love the stories that you tell with these objects, yet there is no clear storyline in your titles? Why not?

“lacus plasticus 29”, © Ryan Zoghlin

When I first started Lacus Plasticus, I went to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago to get a better feel for the behavior of aquatic animals. Many of the exhibits are about the same size and shape, very much like windows. Also the descriptions are very scientific, lots of Latin. I wanted the same tone. One of scientific discovery or method. The titles are more about documentation than narrative.

What do you want us as viewers to walk away with after seeing your work?

“Porthole 4”, © Ryan Zoghlin

My work is always personal to me. As the saying goes, what is personal is universal. As an individual views the work, I hope they can relate on their own personal level and make their own decisions about the subject. Some may care about plastics in our fresh water lakes. Some may not care at all. My goal is to present issues that concern me. My hope is it will concern others.

About Lacus Plasticus –

For almost 40 years, I’ve been sailing off the beaches of Lake Michigan. As a kid and now a father with children, I’ve always loved the shore. As time has marched on, I’ve noticed the increase in plastics on the beach year after year. A few years ago, I started collecting and disposing of the plastic bits I would find. Now I collect plastic to create photogram photographs. The images depict plastic parts and pieces as underwater creatures. The pieces dramatize, for now, a fictitious state where plastics displace nature.

“lacus plasticus 12”, © Ryan Zoghlin

About Ryan Zoghlin –

My memory of a love for photography started early on. Using my father’s Pentax Spotmatic during a family road trip to Cape Canaveral, I clearly remember taking photographs of an early rocket sitting on its launch pad. By 14, I had my own darkroom and was very fortunate to have a very good photography department in my high school. This gave me the tools to move on to Rochester Institute of Technology, where I gained a solid technical background in photographic illustration. Wishing to explore photography as fine art and art in general, I moved on to study at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I received a BFA in photography and sculpture in 1991.

so much plastic — “lacus plasticus 31”, © Ryan Zoghlin

My personal pursuits in photography have not waned through the years. Though my subject matter is varied, the intensity and thought put into each project is the same. While some work has been produced as digital prints from both color negatives and digital files, most of my work is done traditionally in a personal darkroom that I’ve maintained for the last 35 years. In the same time, I’ve used many alternative processes such as kallitypes, ambrotypes, cyanotypes, and orotones in my art. My work in orotones has been included in the Getty Conservation Institute’s Research on the Conservation of Photographs project.My work has been a part of the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s Midwest Photographers Project in Chicago and is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Art in Houston, TX. A recipient of an Illinois Art Council Fellowship and a Buhl Foundation Grant, I have also been featured in publications including Black & White Magazine, Photography Quarterly, Diffusion Magazine, Camera Arts Magazine and Photo District News, as well as many others. I am currently represented by Etherton Gallery in Tucson, AZ and Obscura Gallery in Santa Fe, NM.

Minny Lee | Artists Photobook Initiative

Posted on June 16, 2020

As part of the Griffin’s online offerings, we have a quarterly highlighted photobook artist. The artist currently featured is Minny Lee. Her beautiful, one of a kind, hand crafted books are precious objects. Our Executive Director, Paula Tognarelli, is a collector of photo books, and she asked Minny some questions about her work and inspiration.

I am fascinated by your combination of hand crafting of your books and involving a publisher in some of the mechanics. How do you decide when to use a bindery or to work on them yourself. Why Datz Press?

Encounters Maquette © Minny Lee

Over the years, I made different kinds of books, from one-sheet folded zines to 270-inch long scroll books with a custom box. Of these books, I published two with Datz Press: Encounters (2015) and Million Years (2018). Making one’s own book allows one to explore a wide range of materials, sizes, and binding techniques. The main reason for working with a publisher is to produce a larger number of books more efficiently. This also helps to disseminate the finished book to a larger audience. The challenge was to find a publisher that could reproduce my hand-made books in accordance with my concept, which was finalized after creating many, many maquettes.

Encounters, © Minny Lee

In December 2014, a mutual friend introduced me to Sangyon Joo, the publisher of Datz Press who was living in New York City at the time. I wanted to publish Encounters in time for a solo show in Seoul, South Korea. Datz Press was for me, love at first sight. I loved the sample paper and books that Sangyon brought to our meeting. Luckily, Datz Press was able to make Encounters in an edition of 100 in time for the exhibition. I am eternally indebted to Datz Press for their superb craftsmanship, professionalism, sublime aesthetics, and not compromising.

My final maquette for Encounters was printed on a roll of 44 inch wide and 176 inch long thin rice paper, which contained five strips that I had to cut and fold. Because the images were dark and the paper was thin, it often got jammed. It took me two weeks to make five books. Datz Press, on the other hand, printed three pages per sheet and attached several sheets to make a one-piece accordion. The book surpassed my expectations.

Million Years Maquette © Minny Lee

While Encounters was a self-published book, Million Years was a collaborative project. When I showed my latest maquette to Sangyon, she advised me to add more poems and informational text. After I finished with the final maquette, Datz Press enhanced my design. The book turned out much better than my original maquette. Datz Press participates in book fairs in the US and in South Korea and my books are often included in the offered collection. That’s another perk of working with a publisher.

You have mentioned in past conversations with me that you like to make books that the reader/viewer “experiences”. How do you go about doing that?

Books are magical; they bring us to places we may never have been to and expose us to stories that we may have not heard. I consider a book as a time-based medium and an object of art. Books require physical interactions; one must turn the pages to view. The touch of paper and sound of the turning all add to a physical experience of the book.

Resonance, © Minny Lee

Encounters measures to 7.5 inch high and 5.5 inch wide. Its small size creates intimate viewing. The title “encounters” is letterpressed onto the front side of the pale blue softcover. The spine does not have anything written on it. Paper is off white. It mimics rice paper. Each spread (two facing pages) allows only one image. Most images sit on the right side of the spread. After thirteen images, a one-page essay appears in pale blue, san serif typeface. When the viewer finishes reading my essay, they may travel to their own memory about nature. That’s my intention or invitation created by this book. The accordion folds allow continuous reading of the book. When the content is pulled out, it stands as a sculptural piece.

With Million Years, the editing and sequencing of the book with images and poetry were placed carefully in order to take the viewer into a lateral journey. There are four foldouts (gate folds). The first foldout has four landscape images without borders, as if it were a panorama. The second foldout has four images slightly different from each other to convey movement of the plane. The third foldout has three different cloud images. The forth one contains a long poem. Perhaps the goal of an artist is to take the viewer into a private experience of the world.

As an art book artist it isn’t about words per se. How do you communicate a narrative? Or is that secondary to the experience?

Narrative can come in different forms. With Encounters, I let the images speak first, utilizing the rhythm and color of pictures. Then at the end, I offer a little narrative about my upbringing in South Korea. With Million Years, images from the West Coast to the East Coast on a single airplane ride in chronological order lead the narrative. Poems in between images reflect on geology of the Earth. I tried to weave images and text together that are not explanatory but complimentary.

To me, the relationship between pages becomes a narrative—the author’s intended journey or path to navigate the book. It’s like a movie. There are feature films and documentary films that are filled with narratives. Then there are experimental and abstract films. They seem not to have narratives but clips are put together in a sequence, which becomes the narrative of the film. Every sequence has an intention of the director who is guiding the viewer’s journey.

How did you connect to books as a way of expression? How was that relationship forged?

Various artist’s book by Minny Lee.
Photo by Minny Lee.

The book as a medium is complex and challenging. As a medium of expression, I consider it as total art. A book can be visual, literary, sonic, experimental, performative, meditative, poetic, informative, scientific, investigative, and so on. I am attracted to the book’s ability to intertwine images and text. I take pleasure in designing the book and choosing the materials that meld its form and content together. Just like writing a novel, I can choose different voices, from the first person speaker to the third person speaker. I can travel across different time and place. Every part of the book requires decision-making, from the size of the font to the layouts to the margin of the pages. That deliberate decision-making requires me to be clear about my intention.

Artist Books, 2008 – 2019 © Minny Lee

When I was young, my father used to ask my siblings and I if we read this book or that book. My father read widely from literature to psychology to philosophy. I felt huge pressure to read to avoid disappointing him. My 8^th grade teacher donated 100 world classic literature books to the class. He taught Korean literature and wrote poetry. These two people influenced me greatly. I started to collect books since the mid 90s when I was living in New York. I love books for their intrinsic physicality and their ability to transport me into a different world. When I was studying Documentary Photography at the International Center of Photography, I took Susan kae Grant’s bookmaking workshop in 2008. I learned a lot during that two-weekend workshop. Soon I realized that I could make my vision or dream into a book. Over the years, I’ve been asking myself, “What is a book?” Each time I make a new book, I am trying to answer to that question.

What books are in your library?

I will share some of my favorites from my library.

Literature/Philosophy/Psychology

Roland Barthes – Camera Lucida (1), Image – Music – Text (2)
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha – Dictee (1), Apparatus: Cinematographic Apparatus (2)
Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby (1), Tender is the Night
Herman Hesse – Demian (1), Narcissus and Goldmund (2)
Alexander Von Humboldt Botanical Illustrations
Carl Gustav Jung – The Red Book (1), Man and His Symbols (2), Memories, Dreams, Reflections (3)
Li-Young Lee – Rose
Rollo May – The Courage to Create
Mary Oliver – A Poetry Handbook
Sylvia Plath – The Collected Poems (1), The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2)
Richard Powers – The Overstory
Marcel Proust – In Search of Lost Time
Andrei Tarkovsky – Sculpting in Time
Henry David Thoreau – Walden (1), Walking (2), A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (3)
Ocean Vuong – Night Sky with Exit Wounds (1), On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2)
Virginia Woolf – The Waves (1), Orlando: A Biography (2), To the Lighthouse (3)
Andrea Wulf – The Invention of Nature

Photobooks/Artbooks

Robert Adams – Summer Night, Walking
Jehsong Baak – là ou ailleurs
Barbara Bosworth – Behold (1), Fireflies (2)
John Cage – 4’ 33’’ (1), Silence (2)
Harry Callahan – Water’s Edge
Linda Connor – Luminance
Joseph Cornell – Wanderlust
Moyra Davey – Les Goddesses Hemlock Forest
Roy Decarava – the sound i saw
Andreas Feininger – The Mountains of the Mind
Masahisa Fukase – The Solitude of Ravens
Eikoh Hosoe – Barakei (Ordeal by Roses)
Bill Jacobson – Place (Series)
MongGak Jeon – YoonMi’s House
Sangyon Joo – Grace and Gravity
Kinsey Photographer: A Half Century of Negatives by Darius and Tabitha May Kinsey
Hilma Af Klint – Notes and Methods
Gapchul Lee – Conflict and Reaction
Wayne Levin – Islands, Jeju
Danny Lyon – I Like to Eat Right on the Dirt (1), Knave of Hearts (2)
Amanda Marchand – Night Garden
Duane Michals – 50
Daido Moriyama – Dazai (1), Memories of a Dog (2), Farewell Photography (3)
Philip Perkis – The Sadness of Men
Gerhard Richter – Atlas
Michael Schmidt & Einar Schleef – Waffenruhe
Dayanita Singh – Sent a Letter
Keith Smith – Structure of Visual Book
Ralph Steiner – A Point of View
Larry Sultan – Pictures from Home
Yutaka Takanashi – Toshi-e (Towards the City): Books on Books No. 6
Calvin Tomkins – Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews

Who are your muses?

Nature

Mauna Kea

Sylvia Plath

Paul Cézanne

Duane Michals

KyungHwa Chung

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Kongji (my deceased dog)

Datz Press & Datz Museum

My classmates from the ICP-Bard MFA Program

About Minny Lee –

Minny Lee is a lens- based artist who is currently focusing on making artist’s books. Her work contemplates the concepts around time and space and the coexistence of duality. Lee was born and raised in South Korea and obtained an MA in Art History from City College of New York and an MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies from ICP-Bard. Lee was awarded a fellowship from the Reflexions Masterclass in Europe and participated in an artist-in-residence program at Halsnøy Kloster (Norway) and Vermont Studio Center. Her work has been exhibited at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Camera Club of New York, Datz Museum of Art (S. Korea), Espacio el Dorado (Colombia), Les Rencontres d’Arles (France), Lishui Photo Festival (China) among other venues. Lee’s artist’s books are in the collection of the International Center of Photography Library, New York Public Library, Special Collections at the University of Arizona, Special Collections at Stanford University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Amon Carter Museum Library, and many other private collections. Lee was based in the greater New York area for more than twenty years and recently relocated to Honolulu, Hawaii.

See more of Minny Lee‘s work on her website. To learn more about her book projects see her website dedicated to her Artist Books. Follow her on Instagram here.

Corona | Dawn Watson

Posted on June 15, 2020

We close out our features on our online Corona exhibition with the powerful and graphic work of Dawn Watson. Message from Grace is a beautiful and unique vision of landscape with a call to action. Her work implores us to look, to experience, to take time and see what is around us. We asked her to be part of our online exhibition because her work shines a light both externally into the world around us, and emotionally radiates the soul of who we are in it. We asked her a few questions about her work, and what is next for her.

How does light play in your work?

I’m drawn to the play at the edge where light and shadow meet. My still life work takes advantage of the natural light that enters my home studio. The incremental, constant change of angle and intensity of direct sunlight or the softer fill of an overcast day means I need to be ever aware and responsive to what will best serve the mood or message. Being outside in the landscape requires the same intuitive presence as I am at the mercy of multiple elements but light is always the first defining aspect that I seek.

The Griffin featured Message from Grace in 2018. Your series plays on light and a new way of seeing our natural world. How did you find your palette to showcase the world around us?

While doing some research, I saw in a photo the color combination of brilliant blues and golds used for the external skin of the Mission satellites orbiting in space. By inverting my photographic image, these same tones appeared in the inverted field with little to no deeper adjustment to the color tone in the images. The reveal of the color negative upended my understanding of the natural elements. Sky became ground, sand a glacier, reflection a galaxy, invasive plant species delicate lacy delights, the brilliant sun a black hole.

In all of your images the combination of science, nature and visual engagement really invites us as viewers to experience and be thoughtful about our shared inhabited spaces. What is your hope for us as viewers to take away from your work?

There is this conversation of call and response in and with the natural world, each other, and the larger human community. How we respond now directly affects our future. Due to excessive human activity, weather intensifies, the world shape shifts and the familiar disappears. What is our relationship to loss, inequities, constant change? Where do we find shelter, sustenance and solace? How do we define beauty? What is its worth as the natural world morphs from the familiar to the unrecognizable and uninhabitable? My hope is this work inspires reflection that motivates action.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

Forced confinement has been both a difficult challenge and, paradoxically, a gift granting me the chance to be still, to be quiet. Different each day, I track the passage of time as the sunlight makes it’s marks along the walls, ceiling, floors and furniture. I step outside often, turning towards the sun watching how it catches in the trees, how wind plays with the light.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

Two new series have been gestating for a while. I was unsure of what I wanted to say and thought it best to let things be for a bit. Not until very recently did I reach some clarity. Drift/Bound visually translates my visceral response to how disconnected we feel as recent events have rocked our world. The crumpled, misshapen forms in my prints drift against fields of light and dark, unmoored, as we are, from any familiar world. ReRe is a still life series using saved plastic packaging material, natural elements and found or collected objects. It asks do we repurpose, recycle, redirect, reform and renew or let go of what remains?

About Dawn Watson –

After twenty-five years as a professional dancer, Dawn Watson shifted her artistic practice to photography, finding affinity in the visual storytelling offered by both live performance and the captured image. Watson’s photographic renderings continue to explore form, space, light, movement and storytelling, as she did as a performer. Nature serves as her muse, her subject of concern, a source of solace and healing.

Watson studied photography at the Maine Media Workshop, the ICP (International Center of Photography), as well as the Santa Fe Workshop. Her work has been featured online and in print, including in Lenscratch and The Hand magazine. She has exhibited her photographs and artist books throughout the United States and Europe including the Albrecht-Kemper Museum, A Smith Gallery, Center for Fine Art Photography, PhotoPlace Gallery, Ph21 Gallery, Tilt Gallery, Tang Teaching Museum, and in solo exhibitions at The Griffin Museum of Photography at Greater Boston Stage Company, the Los Angeles Center for Photography and Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts. Her work is held in private collections and at The Lodge at Woodloch.

To see more of Dawn Watson‘s work log onto her website. Follow her on Instagram here.

Corona | J. Felice Boucher

Posted on June 10, 2020

J. Felice Boucher‘s beautiful image Goddess is one of our featured images from our online Corona exhibition. The radiant light emanating from her subject is a moving tribute to the power of a soul. Her exhibition at the Griffin in 2019, Center of Quiet, featured portraits of women facing forward and showing strength in their quiet moments. We asked her some questions about her work and how she sees light in her day.

How does light play in your work?

Light is photography. I went to visit a young photographer at her studio and she said that “old timers wait for the right light. They should just take the damn photograph and fix it in PhotoShop.” That broke my heart. It took me many years to understand light and to really see it.

We highlighted your image Goddess from Center of Quiet, an exhibition featured at the Griffin last year. The Goddess image really showcases her power and strength, radiating from her soul. How did you work with her to capture that?

I ended up photographing two beautiful sisters. I met one of the sisters at a bank where she was a teller. When I photographed her she invited her sister to join us and I photographed her too.

I love fabric and textures so I found fabrics that would highlight their gorgeous faces and skin tones. They have such strong and beautiful features so I wanted to capture those.

Your images have a beautiful textural quality to them, like paintings. What led you to this technique to accentuate the quiet strength of your female subjects?

I do try to capture the strength of women in a direct sensuous but not sexual way. For me there is a huge difference between the two; sensuous and sexual. The light and texture in the Old Master paintings are compelling to me. So I add texture of colors over my photographs to give them a painterly look.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

I haven’t photographed since the Covid-19 hit us. I had been photographing my models in a little corner of my bedroom and it is no longer a possibility to bring people into my home. But I am always photographing in my mind even without a camera in my hands. I love watching how light falls on someones face, on a landscape, or a strong shadow created by a flower in a vase.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

Good question. Who knows. On my walks I pass a neighbor’s mustard colored dingy and rust colored chickens in the warm evening light…that pulls at me.

About J. Felice Boucher –

J. Felice Boucher has been a photographer with a career that has spanned 27 years. She earned her BFA from the Maine College of Art, as a non-traditional student and single mother of two young children. And was awarded the Master Degree, Craftsmanship Certification by the Professional Photographers of America. She opened her photography business and photographed weddings, portraits and commercial projects both locally and around the country for over 23 years. Recently she has given up the wedding and portrait work and now focuses on real estate photography and her fine are work. Her fine art photography has appeared in museums, galleries and private collectors.

Corona | Liz Calvi

Posted on June 9, 2020

One of our featured artists in our Corona online exhibition, Liz Calvi’s work illuminates inner beauty and light. Her series, Lost Boys was featured at the Griffin in 2014. Her Corona highlighted image, Christian, comes from that series. We wanted to know more about the work, and how she finds the beauty and strength within her subjects.

How does light play in your work?

The relationship I have to light varies for each series I make, but I would say a common thread would be that light is a defining factor when I create my work.

For Lost Boys in particular, I wanted to use natural light to express a quiet beauty and a feeling of reverie. When I made this series, the narrative depicted my generation highlighted the success of women in the workplace and the decline of a 1950s mentality of men as masculine financial providers. We left high school in 2008 and entered either the job market or college during a financial crisis. The narrative excluded the hardship that many of us were feeling and, coincidentally, how these new circumstances were chastising men for not living up to an outdated view of masculinity. The young men I photographed were all living at home (as was I) and I wanted to use light to show a softer side to masculinity while concurrently evoking empathy towards our generation.

We highlighted your image from the series Lost Boys, featured at the Griffin back in 2015. The connection you have with your subject is truly captured in this intimate moment. How did it come about?

Christian and I are from the same town, our childhood homes are right around the corner from each other. We became friends in high school so we already had an established relationship prior to making this photograph. As with most of the young men I photographed for Lost Boys I didn’t go in with a preplanned idea. I went to Christian’s home one afternoon and we chatted while walking around the different rooms in his house. I surveyed the light while listening to his stories as he told me various memories he had from different places in his home. We took a few photographs that day, but I settled on this one in his room because of the balance between the distortion and grace in his gesture, complemented by the dappling light.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

I’ve tried to see this time in insolation as a way to reexamine my relationship to light and nature which we tend to overlook in our typical fast-paced consumer society. I’ve been using my digital devices less frequently and taking my camera outdoors or simply just enjoying nature hands free. Light has been providing happiness and relaxation for me, it has been a solace in our time of Corona. I’ve also been making time to reflect in the spring light and hope it provides others with a similar time for personal reflection but also a time to consider how our society is structured and what it prioritizes.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

Recently I’ve been focusing on the representation of women in digital spaces and how this impacts identity from an autobiographical and collective cultural memory lens. This direction has led me to make videos and writing to go with my photographs in larger installations. I finished grad school this past year and am in the beginning phase of research, writing, and storyboarding for new video work.

About Liz Calvi –

Liz Calvi (b. 1990 Hartford, USA) lives and works between London and NYC. Her practice encompasses photography, video, writing and installation works with critical concerns regarding performance, sexuality, autobiography, identity and digital media.

Calvi received her MFA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths 2019 and her BFA from the University of Hartford in 2012 after studying at Pratt Institute. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Der Greif, Juxtapoz, Aint-Bad and Fader. Her photography has been exhibited internationally and is in several public & private collections. She has a limited- edition book in the permanent collection at Antenna in New Orleans as part of The Blue Library Vol 2

To see more work from Liz Calvi log onto her website. Find her here on Instagram.

Corona | Kevin Hoth

Posted on June 8, 2020

Holding a mirror up to our surroundings isn’t just an idea for Kevin Hoth. In his series Everywhere and All at Once, shown at the Griffin in 2018, Hoth uses a mirror to give us that fuller view. Reflection is important, especially now, in so many ways. In seeing the landscape as a fully sensory lived and shared experience, Kevin has given us a way to experience light and life in a new way. His image highlighted in our Corona exhibition, Overdub, is a perfect example of light and the ideas of Corona.

How does light play in your work?

It’s funny, I almost never think about it but that is because I am so intimately involved with it on a daily basis. Light is always the raw material in my work, of course, though I don’t generally make work about it unless it relates to a particular project I am working on. During this time of coronavirus I have indeed been tracking the shadows in my home as a way to trace time. There is an arrangement of oblique light that falls on my daughter’s piano that I jokingly call “cubist piano time.” I’ve thought about making an image every time it falls like this and then create a tiled image of all of these fractured pianos. Some plant shadows have featured in some of my work but it usually is just for play or observational practice with an instant film camera. We are also creatures borne of light. All the sustenance that we require comes from sunlight.

We are featuring your image Overdub, from your series Everywhere and All at Once. Your creation of a visual landscape that incorporates multiple directions showcases a unique way of seeing. How did you find your vision? What was the first image in the series that pushed you forward to work that way?

I have always enjoyed noticing other spaces in reflections. About ten years ago I made some images looking into windows and I thought about how there were three spaces represented: the surface of the glass (a flat space but still a space to be rendered), what was inside the building, and what was behind me. So I think the consciousness of multiple spaces within one frame, from one vantage point was a growing seed inside me. The Everywhere And All At Once project really came from a mix of play and accident which is where all great discoveries come from. I was experimenting with mirrors back in 2012 for about a year and then set it aside as I didn’t know where it was going. Later a friend asked about the series so I picked up the mirror again and took it with me on hikes and road trips. I made an image of a mountain side connecting to a cloud, then one horizon line connecting into another and that is where my “ah-ha moment” occurred. As a photographic observer I often feel like I can see everything at once at one time. It’s almost a physical sensation. This project is a way for me to evoke that sensation. I also feel most alive in open, natural spaces and the expansiveness is something I am trying to show albeit from my singular vantage point.

Does the use of the mirror also hold a metaphorical gaze for you? In how we look at landscapes? What would you like viewers of your work to walk away with after seeing your photographs?

I suppose I’d like people to see what I see or at least feel some sensation of how I observe. I want the gaze here to be almost a disembodied or maybe a universal one. Although I am conscious that not all people have the same comfort level or privilege of being alone in a landscape. Some have noted a visual fragmentation in these images which one could liken to a Cubist viewpoint. Again, the idea here is merging several angles of view into one image even though I am combining them in one instant. I have made more of a conceptual connection to the way people often view landscapes through a phone screen. I’ve made a fair amount of this work in National Parks and when you stop at a prescribed viewpoint you see the phenomenon of the quick phone grab. We often are too busy looking through our phones to frame the right shot. Of course, I am also “guilty” as I am meditating my view through a camera.

In this time of Corona, how do you find light in your day?

I appreciate small things maybe in the same way a child would. Light falling on the floor from my skylight, shadows from a tree shifting on my window shades in the afternoon. A red-orange poppy coming up in my yard is a celebration for me. Color fills me up in extremely energizing ways. My current work is around flowers and I am endlessly fascinated by them. My daughter is also a constant source of joy and light for me. I’m not sure how I would be doing without long hugs with her.

What is next for you creatively? What are you working on?

I have been experimenting with instant film for quite some time and am currently working on a series called Immortal Chromatic. I photograph flowers that keep their color even after dying and then I create large instant film mosaics from these source images. I cut and burn the instant film “tiles” as they develop. The theme of creation and destruction has been part of this work with flowers across multiple projects. I am also integrating paint and thread into these physical pieces as well. They are photographs but they are also sculptural objects.

about Kevin Hoth –

Kevin Hoth is an artist working with photography, video and performance. His current work deals with perception and the manner in which multiple spaces can be formed into a singular frame. Kevin also works heavily with deconstructed instant film to explore themes of creation/destruction, truth as it is represented in photography, as well as beauty and transience.

Kevin Hoth in his studio

Kevin has shown work in over one hundred exhibitions nationally and internationally, including recent exhibitions at The Dairy Center for the Arts, The Rhode Island Center for Photography, The Houston Center for Photography, and The Center For Fine Art Photography. His work will be part of the Qualities of LIGHT symposium at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson in January of 2020. Recent awards include Top 200 Critical Mass, Center For Fine Art Photography Portfolio Showcase 12 and top ten finalist in the New Orleans Photo Alliance 2018 Clarence John Laughlin Award. Kevin recently completed an artist residency in January of 2019 in Brazil and explored how varied perceptions of time can be represented.

Kevin has taught college courses in photography, graphic design, and multimedia art at numerous universities and currently teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder where he has taught since 2011. He lives with his daughter in mountainous Boulder, CO and gets regularly woken up by coyote cries, owl hoots, and horse whinnies.

Fun facts: He did a stint as a full-time graphic designer for an Amazon.com company, made an interactive garment with force sensors that played odd bodily noises back in 2006, collaborated extensively with a modern dance company as a VJ, and played bass in a Seattle band that once played live on KEXP-Seattle.

To see more of Kevin Hoth‘s work, log onto his website. Look here follow him on Instagram.

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