Griffin Gallery

Statement
In February 1979 I began taking Polaroid SX70 self-portraits on a daily basis to explore the idea of time as connected to a lunar month, but also to find a way to stay grounded as much of my life was imploding. Months turned into years and I continued the daily documentation of self for eight years, until November 1987.

Spontaneously deciding when and where to take the photo, arbitrarily choosing which exposure and focus to use, allowed me to incorporate elements of randomness and chance in my creative process.Additional self-imposed guidelines prescribed that the camera was always handheld and only one image a day could be created, regardless of the outcome. I was searching for the intuitive.  My interest in the moon began when I wanted to present the Polaroids using a standard measure of time and I chose a variation of a lunar month.

The Polaroid series was a visual journal waiting to be decrypted as if I was looking into a mirror, seeking to understand who I was, who I was becoming, and attempting to make sense of life experiences out of my control. As we all know, the camera never lies, and now revisiting this extensive self-documentation I begin to understand what is revealed.

Women throughout history have found journals a sympathetic medium. I was looking to define myself at a time when the feminist revolution had already won many new freedoms and choices for women.  I realize now that I was exploring the politics of identity–and not just gender identity– and deciphering who I was in relation to photography.  The reconsideration of this project, now with the patina of time, allows for a deeper understanding of self and a legacy of the Polaroid medium that can never be replicated. – J.K. Lavin

Bio
J. K. Lavin is a fine art photographer living and working in Venice, California. Recurring themes in her work are memory, self-portraiture and marking the passage of time. Duration is an important dimension of her practice, as well as experimentation with randomness and chance.

After moving to Los Angeles, J. K. Lavin received a Master’s Degree of Art in Photography from California State University at Fullerton, CA. She also studied photography at The Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York and The Center of the Eye in Aspen, Colorado. Currently Crisis of Experience, photographs from her Polaroid SX70 self-portrait series, is on view as a solo exhibition at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA. Crisis of Experience have received several prestigious awards.

J. K. Lavin has had one-person exhibitions at Spot Photoworks, Los Angeles, CA and at Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, CA. Recently her work has been exhibited at San Francisco Camerawork Gallery in San Francisco, SE Center for Photography in Greenville, SC, The Center for Fine Art Photography in CO, Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR, Building Bridges Art Exchange in Santa Monica, CA and Fotofever 2015 and 2017 in Paris, FR.

Website

Mark Feeney Boston Globe Review

Las Sombras/The Shadow

“I picked the dead coyote up off the road. It had been hit by a car, probably at dawn that morning. It was surprisingly heavy, but its coat was finer and softer than I had imagined. I was worried it would not fit under the enlarger and that my paper wouldn’t be wide enough, and it was going to be hard work digging a hole to bury it afterwards.

In the mid 19^thcentury the daughter of a biologist, an English woman called Anna Atkins (1799-1871) began a decade-long obsession with collecting and documenting algae and seaweed.  They were the earliest form of photography, pictures made without a camera, ‘photogenic drawings’ or photograms, in which the subject is laid on light sensitized paper and exposed to light, in this case the sun, using a process known as cyanotype. She self-published this collection in a series of volumes called ‘British Algae’.  They were beautiful, otherworldly images of white amorphous shapes floating on a deep blue background. She labeled them in neat Victorian handwriting with their classifying genus and species.

When I first put a eucalyptus leaf on a piece of photographic paper in the dark, in an art school in Australia roughly 130 years later, my fate was sealed – my own obsessions set in motion.  The natural world is full of wondrous things to look at and to chronicle and catalogue. In my own way, I have devoted myself to that end.

After I laid the coyote on the photographic paper and gently stroked the dirt and pebbles off its glossy coat and arranged its tail, I thought about Anna arranging her seaweed with the same care and with the same anticipation.

These images are the ghostly shadows of the remains of living creatures, burned onto photographic paper with light and with love, to make a lasting impression.”

– Kate Breakey

 

Kate Breakey is internationally known for her large-scale, richly hand-colored photographs including her acclaimed series of luminous portraits of birds, flowers and animals in an ongoing series called Small Deaths published in 2001 by University of Texas Press with a foreword by noted art critic, A. D. Coleman.  Since 1980 her work has appeared in more than100 one-person exhibitions and in over 60 group exhibitions in the US, France, Japan, Australia, China, and New Zealand. Her work is held in many public institutions including the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos, the Austin Museum of Art, and the Australian National Gallery in Canberra.   Her third book, Painted Light, published by the University of Texas in 2010, is a career retrospective that encompasses a quarter century of prolific image making.

Her collection of photograms, entitled ‘Las Sombras / The shadows’ was published by University of Texas Press in October 2012.   This series is a continuation of her lifetime investigation of the natural world which in her own words is ‘brimming with fantastic mysterious and  beautiful things.

A native of South Australia, Kate moved to Austin, Texas in 1988. She completed a Master of Fine Art degree at the University of Texas in 1991 where she also taught photography in the Department of Art and Art History until 1997.  In1999, she moved to Tucson, Arizona. In 2004 she received the Photographer of the Year award from the Houston Center for Photography. She now regularly teaches at the Santa Fe Photographic workshops, and The Italy ‘Spirit into Matter’ workshops.

Her landscape images – selected from a life-time of photographing all over the world – were published by Etherton Gallery in a Catalogue entitled  ‘Slow Light’. She currently works with gold-leaf to produce a modern day version of an archaic process called an Orotone, and also uses encaustic wax, a continuation of her interest in ‘blurring lines’ between media.

 

Website

The 2017 award for the John Chervinsky Emerging Scholarship has gone to photographer Rachel Fein-Smolinski

The judges, said, “We are pleased to award the 2017 John Chervinsky Scholarship to Rachel Fein-Smolinski. Rachel’s plunge into science-and-visual-expression, her experimentation with imagery and presentation in the service of her ideas, and a special energy all come through in her uniquely provocative work. While not a requirement of this award, and quite different in form, she and John share the spirit of scientific inquiry, making this all the sweeter.”

John Chervinsky Emerging Photographer Scholarship awards 2017 Press Release

Fein-Smolinski submitted The Infinite Internal for consideration for the scholarship. Fein-Smolinski says of the body of work:

“The Infinite Internal has three chapters: “The Sex Lives of Animals without Backbones”, “A Science of Desirable/Detestable Bodies”, and “The Prosthetic Practice for the Healing of Imaginary Wounds” that integrate disparate imagery, from highly stylized documents, photographs, videos of dissections, and sourced diagrams from scientific education materials used to create spaces that probe the relationship that intellectualism has with authority, gender, sexuality, and psychology. Intellectualism has historically been a saving grace for disenfranchised cultural groups, heavily associated with people of Jewish descent and those who identify as women. As someone who is both of those things, I have been carrying out my own experiments, spending time with DIY scientists and creating installation spaces that visualize science fiction stories of DIY biology and medical procedures that appropriate the authority of the bio-medical field. I print large format images created through microscopy and coat them in resin. Resin being a substance that is used in the preservation of organisms. I use clinical lighting like x-ray viewing machines to show transparencies that I produce in the darkroom on lith-film from archival scientific educational slides, carry out at home dissections of organs and organisms, grow crystals which I document via time-lapse, use alternative printing processes that reference the history of women in science like cyanotypes referencing Anna Atkins botany prints and black and white documentation of physical principles appropriated from an archive of scientific educational slides, referencing Berenice Abbot’ s work producing images for MIT’s Physics department. A vital aspect of this work is the installations, which address the images as objects themselves, amongst a world of objects that hold visual pleasure on the same level as intellectual rigor, using institutional, experimental, educational, and commercial display methods.”

Rachel Fein-Smolinski’s Statement of Purpose:

“My work is about pleasure, neurosis, objectivity and subjectivity. It is about the visceral and visual satisfaction associated with the history of the documentation and depiction of bio- medical phenomena. I use a mixture of the visual indulgence of high commerce, the sacred and compulsive laboratory space, and the expansive mode of science fiction and its ability to appropriate the authority of knowledge to create speculative installation spaces in the visual field. I look at what the relationship between neurosis, intelligence, subjectivity, objectivity and visual indulgence is within the history of the pursuit of knowledge.

The history of science has held fast to the aesthetic of objective authority, with observation as the primary source of knowledge in scientific inquiry. I scrutinize the bio-medical and techno-scientific gaze, using its authority to create discreet objects, incorporating photography, video and sculpture to search for the neurotic impetus within the fields of intellectual pursuit.

I use an alter-ego, a caricature of a neurotic, intellectual hero, constructed from cultural signifiers, as a Jewish woman, raised with a cultural identity that idealizes intellect to the point of fetishization. This is a stylized performance of a masculine archetype (yes, I am exploring what it means to be a woman through the usage of masculinity and its historical relationship to authority) used in science fiction, tv doctor dramas, and retellings of the histories of technological advancement. Intellectual inquiry is a socially acceptable form of obsessive, and scopophilic (visually indulgent) behavior. It is a space where unhealthy impulses are sublimated into the field of intellectual pursuit. All is forgiven if the hero’s brilliance outshines their character flaws.

Bio-medical exploration is a fantasy of constant visibility. To see is to know, and to know is to succeed. With techniques like dissections, bodies are eviscerated so that the spectator can incorporate the sight of the others’ internal organs into their own body of knowledge. Or microscopy, where an imaging apparatus is used to augment the viewer’s vision in order to look at, and infer new knowledge from, otherwise invisible mechanisms, ideally infinitely. However, as there is no such thing as a purely objective gaze—observation is always tied to a host of psychological associations. To see is to concurrently project and consume. Through this play-acting of biological experiments and procedures, I tease out the role of visual pleasure in intellectual inquiry, resulting in installation spaces that reproduce the clinical, experimental, and educational. In this way, I explore what Foucault described in his 1963 book The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, as “…that region of ‘subjective symptoms’ that—for the doctor—defines not the mode of knowledge, but the world of objects to be known.” ”

 

Statement
“Since my father died I think a lot about the people, places and times of my life that exist now only in my head. I think about mortality and feelings of loss I cannot reconcile. I think about the wondrous power of imagination and also its futility in the light of realities we cannot escape.

I muse on all of this as I work in the park at night seeking out these unearthly portraits….entities that exist but don’t, visages that are real enough to be photographed but are only landscape and light, spirits that exist once and then are gone for good.” -RR

Website

Statement

We live in a post-privacy world, an image-obsessed society where cameras are everywhere. With or without our knowledge, we are being photographed countless times a day. We try to avoid people pointing smartphones and other hand-held cameras at us as we walk down the street, but are we conscious of the cameras lurking above us? They watch us eat in restaurants, see who we meet, record who we talk to, yet as we become more accustomed to their presence, we stop paying attention. As our political situation becomes more fractured, shouldn’t we care about being watched? And about who is watching? I make these photographs to raise questions that come from the claustrophobic sense of being constantly observed.

BeSeeingYou is made up of multiple projects dealing with photography without permission, and the absence of privacy. Each series has led to the next, and I look for different ways to photograph aspects of the gray area that is surveillance in our modern age. I have photographed strangers through glass store windows, to catch them at the moment they realize that an unknown person is taking their picture. I point my camera at the cameras that are watching me, and photograph the buildings, walls and streets where they hide in plain sight. The frequent appearance of surveillance cameras on television, not just on the news or crime shows, but on comedies, hospital dramas, even The Simpsons, normalizes the presence of surveillance in our lives. So while the shows have these cameras as part of the story or just part of the set design, I include them in this project. Warning signs, CCTV suspects from the news, and even my own reflection caught in the dome of the camera are some of the additional parts of this long-term project. I show the photographs separately or mixed together in groups or lines of images, telling stories of the different ways that surveillance that has invaded our streets and our homes, impacting our privacy.

I am grateful to the Puffin Foundation for providing funding for this project. -SLB

Website

Bio

Born in the Bronx, Sheri Lynn Behr studied photography and digital imaging in New YorkCity and began her career photographing musicians and celebrities back in the day. Her rock and roll photographs were featured in Rolling Stone, CREEM, and most music publications of the time, and are now collected, exhibited, and published in books and magazines.

After several years working in the music business, Behr decided to concentrate on personal work. She explored Polaroid manipulations, and two SX-70 photographs are currently on view in the book and exhibition The Polaroid Project, now traveling to cities in Europe and Asia, before finishing at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA. Other projects have examined New York City’s Chinatowns and the iconic Lucky Cat.

Recent work deals with photography without permission and our surveillance society. Behr’s photographs have been exhibited at national and international venues, including the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, The Westlicht Museum of Photography, The Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Davis-Orton Gallery, Kimmel Gallery at NYU, and the Griffin Museum of Photography. Her work has been featured in Harper’s Magazine, New York Magazine, Slate: Behold blog, People’s Photography (China), Lenscratch, aCurator, The Boston Globe, and many other publications. In 2012 she received a Fellowship in Photography from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and in 2018 received a grant from the Puffin Foundation.

CV

BORN
Bronx, New York, USA

AWARDS
2018 PUFFIN FOUNDATION ARTIST GRANT, Puffin Foundation, Teaneck, NJ

2015 Juror’s Award ILLUMINATE, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO

3rd Place Award MAINE MEDIA WORKSHOPS PIN-UP SHOW, B&H, New York, NY

Honorable Mention SOHO PHOTO NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION, New York, NY

2014 Honorable Mention WHAT IS A PORTRAIT? Ripe Art Gallery, Huntington, NY

2013 Honorable Mention FACES, Darkroom Gallery, Essex Jct. VT

2012 INDIVIDUAL ARTIST FELLOWSHIP FOR PHOTOGRAPHY, New Jersey State Council on the Arts

Honorable Mention THE CAMERA CLUB OF NEW YORK 2012 ANNUAL JURIED COMPETITION, New York, NY

SELECTED SOLO & TWO or THREE-PERSON SHOWS

2018 BESEEINGYOU Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA, June 2018

2017 KEEPING WATCH Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC), Denver, CO

2015 NOT FOR PUBLICATION No Roses, Sherman Oaks, CA

2014 BUSHWICK OPEN STUDIOS Bushwick Project Garage, Brooklyn, NY

2013 TO BRING IN THE MONEY II No Roses, Sherman Oaks, CA

2011 TO BRING IN THE MONEY No Roses, Sherman Oaks, CA

2004 I AM NOT WHERE I AM NOW Almanac Gallery of Photography, Hoboken, NJ

2003 ROCK AND ROBOTS Orbit Gallery, Edgewater, NJ

SELECTED GROUP SHOWS

2018 QUIÉN? QUÉ? DÓNDE? curated by Paula Tognarelli, Lafayette City Center Passageway, Boston, MA

STRUCTURE Don’t Take Pictures, Online Exhibition

THE POLAROID PROJECT Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

WINTERTIME Don’t Take Pictures, Online Exhibition

SMALL WORKS BARUCH 2018 juried by Elizabeth Avedon, Sidney Mishkin Gallery, New York, NY

TREE TALK ON-LINE EXHIBITION Griffin Museum of Photography Virtual Gallery

2017 THE POLAROID PROJECT WestLicht Museum for Photography, Vienna, Austria

PORTRAITS: WITHIN TIME + SPACE juried by Elizabeth Avedon, SXSE Gallery, Molena, GA

SIZE MATTERS juried by Katherine Ware, Helmuth Projects, San Diego, CA

UNNATURAL ELECTION curated by Andrea Arroyo, Puffin Cultural Forum, Teaneck, NJ

THIRD ANNUAL GROUP SHOW juried by Paula Tognarelli, Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson NY

SOHO PHOTO NAT’L PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION juried by Aline Smithson, Soho Photo, New York, NY

THE POLAROID PROJECT, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX

UNNATURAL ELECTION curated by Andrea Arroyo, Out North Contemporary Art House, Anchorage, AK

UNNATURAL ELECTION curated by Andrea Arroyo, Kimmel Galleries at NYU, New York, NY

THE CURATED FRIDGE curated by Elin Spring, Somerville, MA

MASKS Don’t Take Pictures, Online Exhibition

2016 AMERICA juried by Roger May, Light Leaked, Online Exhibition

WINTER SOLSTICE 2016 Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA

POLITICO POPUP2 curated by Leona Strassberg Steiner, New Orleans Art Center, New Orleans, LA

WATER juried by Richard McCabe, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO

2ND ANNUAL GROUP SHOW juried by Paula Tognarelli, Davis Orton Gallery, Hudson, NY

GRIFFIN MUSEUM 22TH JURIED EXHIBITION juried by Elizabeth Avedon, Winchester, MA

THE ELEVATED SELFIE curated by Laura Moya & Laura Valenti, Griffin Gallery at Stoneham Theater, Stoneham MA

THE ELEVATED SELFIE curated by Laura Moya & Laura Valenti, LightBox Photographic Gallery, Astoria, OR

POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE a Benefit for Visual AIDS, Sikkima Jenkins & Co, New York, NY

2015 POLITICO POP-UP curated by Leona Strassberg Steiner, New Orleans Art Center, New Orleans, LA

GREETINGS FROM… 5 Press Gallery, New Orleans, LA

ILLUMINATE juried by Elizabeth Avedon, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO

WINTER SOLSTICE 2015 Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA

SIZE MATTERS juried by Gordon Stettinius, Medium Festival of Photography, Low Gallery, San Diego, CA

MAINE MEDIA WORKSHOPS PIN-UP SHOW, B&H, New York, NY

I/THOU curated by Pamela Tinnen, Stovall Family Galleries, Kimmel Center at NYU, New York, NY

THE CURATED FRIDGE:THE INAUGURAL SHOW curated by Caleb Cole, Somerville, MA

YOU’VE GOT MAIL Ground Floor Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

SOHO PHOTO NAT’L PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION juried by Elizabeth Avedon, Soho Photo, New York, NY

SKY curated by Paula Tognarelli, Lafayette City Center Passageway Gallery, Boston, MA

EARLY WORKS Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA

www.sherilynnbehr.com | slbehr3@gmail.com

sheri lynn behr: photography

2014 WHAT IS A PORTRAIT? juried by Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Ripe Art Gallery, Huntington, NY

WINTER SOLSTICE 2014 Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA

THE PERPETUAL INSTANT juried by Grant Hamilton, Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA

NEXT Castell Photography, Asheville, NC

SKY curated by Paula Tognarelli, YourDailyPhotograph.com

GRIFFIN MUSEUM 20TH JURIED EXHIBITION juried by Aline Smithson, Winchester, MA

IMPROMPTU juried by Stella Kramer, The Darkroom Gallery, Essex Jct. VT

UP, CLOSE & PERSONAL curated by Ruben Natal San-Miguel, Fuchs Projects, Brooklyn, NY

THEN.NOW.HERE (slideshow) curated by Laura Moya and Laura Valenti, Blue Sky Gallery, Portland OR,

THEN.NOW.HERE (slideshow) Oregon Historical Society, Portland OR

EARLY WORKS The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO

RISING WATERS 2.0: MORE PHOTOGRAPHS OF SANDY The Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY

2013 FACES Darkroom Gallery, Essex Jct. VT

CENTER FORWARD juried by Hamidah Glasgow, The Center For Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO

NJ STATE COUNCIL ON THE ARTS: VISUAL ARTS FELLOWSHIP SHOWCASE EXHIBITION

Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Loveladies, NJ

MUSINGS juried by John A. Bennette, Photo Center NW, Seattle, WA

EARLY WORKS curated by Laura Moya and Laura Valenti, Newspace Center for Photography, Portland OR

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

PRINT

2017 THE POLAROID PROJECT: ART AND TECHNOLOGY, Thames & Hudson, London, pp. 55, 282

FINDINGS Harper’s Magazine, March 2017, p.96

2016 A JUROR’S VERDICT, REENACTORS, AND ABDUCTEES AT GRIFFIN MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY, Boston Globe, Mark Feeney, 7.25.16

THE GRIFFIN MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY’S 22TH JURIED SHOW:THE PETER URBAN LEGACY EXHIBITION catalog

2015 NEIL YOUNG: HEART OF GOLD, Harvey Kubernik, Backbeat Books

SKY exhibition catalog

2014 BLOW ME A KISS, Alice Harris, PowerHouse Books

THE GRIFFIN MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHY’S 20TH JURIED SHOW:THE PETER URBAN LEGACY EXHIBITION exhibition catalog: Back Cover

IMPROMPTU exhibition catalog

2013 FACES exhibition catalog

CENTER FORWARD 2013 exhibition catalog, MagCloud

NOSAFEDISTANCE-SHERI LYNN BEHR People’s Photography (China) 5.29.13

SMILE exhibition catalogue, A Smith, Blurb

2011 BLONDIE, UNBOWED, New York Magazine 8.21.11

2010 LUCKY CATS, Blurb (self-published)

DARYL HALL, New York Magazine, I2.26.10

2009 CHILDHOOD, Light Leaks Magazine issue 14

ROAD TRIP, Light Leaks Magazine issue 13

ONLINE

2018 ON PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE L’Oeil de la Photographie, 2.6.18

2017 PORTRAITS: South x Southeast Photo Gallery Molena, GA November 11th, 2017, Elizabeth Avedon Journal, 11.6.17

KEEPING WATCH:HASAN ELAHI, LAUREN GRABELLE, AND SHERI LYNN BEHR, LENSCRATCH, Aline Smithson, 8.3.17

SHERI LYNN BEHR, Underexposed Magazine, Davìda Carta, 5.20.17

2016 SECOND THAT EMOTION, What Will You Remember? Elin Spring, 7.28.16

KEEPING TRACK OF ALL THE CAMERAS, Slate: BEHOLD, David Rosenberg, 3.29.16

THE SUCCESS OF “EARLY WORKS” All-About-Photo, Ann Jastrab 2.29.16

2015 SHERI LYNN BEHR: NOMATTERWHERE, aCurator, Julie Grahame, 11.3.15

SHERI LYNN BEHR: JANICE MONGER’S PICK, L’Oeil de la Photographie, 2.23.15

NOSAFEDISTANCE, TheSIP, The Shpilman Institute for Photography, Tel Aviv, Israel 2.1.15

THE PHOTO REVIEW 2014 COMPETITION: STRUCTURES, The Photo Review 4.15

LAURA MOYA AND LAURA VALENTI: EARLY WORKS, Lenscratch 2.6.15

2014 CASTELL PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION, L’Oeil de la Photographie Elizabeth Avedon 11.7.14

PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE MAKEOVER: SHERI LYNN BEHR, Feature Shoot 8.14.14

SHERI LYNN BEHR: No Safe Distance, Elizabeth Avedon Journal 8.5.14

WHAT YOU SEE, Orta Format (Turkey), Issue 13, 7.14

NO SAFE DISTANCE, ToneLit Magazine, Issue 8, 5.14

UP, CLOSE & PERSONAL, New York Photo Review, Norman Borden, 4.14

UP, CLOSE & PERSONAL @ FUCHS PROJECTS, American Suburb X, Ellen Wallenstein, 4.14

2013 NOSAFEDISTANCE, Square Magazine issue 4.3, Christophe Dillinger

PORTFOLIO: I AM NOT WHERE I AM NOW, Toy Camera, www.toycamera.es

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT, Feature Shoot interview, Ben Marcin, 10.23.13

PHOTOLUCIDA-SHERI LYNN BEHR, wall-space gallery | the flat file, Crista Dix, 7.2.13

PHOTOLUCIDA-SHERI LYNN BEHR: 3 SERIES WITHOUT PERMISSION, LENSCRATCH, 6.27.13

SHERI LYNN BEHR, New Landscape Photography, Willson Cummer, 6.26.13

FRACTION 50, Fraction Magazine, Issue 50-Group 1, David Bram, 5.1.13

2012 YOUR HOLIDAY PICTURES: SHERI LYNN BEHR, le journal de la photographie, 8.22.12

SELF CONTAINED, PHOTO/arts magazine, Christopher Paquette

SERIAL, F-STOP MAGAZINE #53, Cristy Karpinski

DONATIONS AND BENEFITS

2017 Postcards From the Edge 2017, Metro Pictures, New York, NY

2016 18th Annual Postcards From The Edge, A Benefit for Visual AIDS, Sikkema Jenkins & Co. New York, NY

2015 17th Annual Postcards From The Edge, A Benefit for Visual AIDS, Luhring Augustine, New York, NY

2014 Design on A Dime 2014, Paddle8 online auction, Housing Works

2013 Design on A Dime 2013, Housing Works

2012 Design on A Dime 2012, Housing Works

2011 Life Support Japan, wall-space gallery

2010 Photographers for Haiti, Verge Art Fair

12th Annual Postcards from the Edge, A Benefit for Visual AIDS, ZieherSmith, New York City

2008 Night of 1000 Drawings, Artists Space

Texas Photographic Society Auction XIV

COLLECTIONS

Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC), Denver, CO

AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, Atlantic City, NJ

Newark Public Library Special Collections Division

Photographers Network: Selection – Thomas Kellner Collection

Comer Collection of Photography, University of Texas at Dallas

California Museum of Photography

The Media Center at Visual Studies Workshop

The Polaroid Collection

The Polaroid International Collection

Private collections in the US and Europe

TELEVISION/RADIO/ARTIST TALKS

2011 TAKE5ive WIN Initiative, New York City

2006 OPEN JOURNAL KPFT Radio 90.1, Pacifica Houston, TX

2003 THE CULTURAL CONNECTION Ch. 10 News, Time Warner Bergen, NJ

EDUCATION

MAINE MEDIA WORKSHOPS

INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY

THE NEW SCHOOL

SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS

PRATT MANHATTAN

Wendi Schneider’s “States of Grace” will showcase in the Griffin Gallery of the Griffin Museum on March 6th through April 10, 2018. The reception will be March 8th from 7 – 8:30 PM. Wendi will do an informal talk on “States of Grace” at 6:15 PM.

Artist’s Statement

In States of Grace, I illuminate beauty amidst the chaos. I’m calmed by the simplicity of a graceful line and the stillness of the suspended moment and am compelled to share an impression of the serenity I find there. I capture the ephemeral movement of light on organic forms, to preserve that mystical moment that stills time for me. Photographing intuitively – what I feel, as much as what I see – and informed by a background in painting and art history, I portray a personal interpretation by layering the images digitally with color and texture, to find balance between the real and the imagined.

The images are printed digitally with archival pigment ink on vellum. White gold, silver or 24k gold leaf is then applied behind the image, creating a silken luminosity on the print’s surface. Throughout history, civilizations have prized the use of precious metals for their beauty and sanctity. The leafing process suffuses the intrinsic value of the treasured subjects with the implied spirituality of the gold. The perception of luminosity varies as the viewer’s position and ambient light change. Within the limited edition, the prints may differ in color or texture, and, as the effect of gilding inherently varies, each of the limited edition prints is unique.

Paula Tognarelli, executive director of the Griffin Museum says, “There is an elegance that emanates from Wendi Schneider’s photographs. It can be seen in the turn of a flamingo’s neck, in hanging fog or flick of a betta fish tail. Schneider’s photographic gestures are not rare sightings but daily gifts from the natural world for those with the patience to see them.”

About the Artist

“I’m still drawn to the scent of oils and turpentine. The aroma evokes glimpses of my mother and grandmother at their easels at my childhood home in Memphis, coffee-with-chicory nights in the Newcomb studios in New Orleans, the inherited easel by the window overlooking Park and 35th St. in New York, and finally to it’s current home in Denver. I tend to see the world in vignettes, and am calmed by the visual balance of a good composition. I struggle to balance my need for solitude with time for interaction, and my anxieties with confidence. After years of creating images for book covers, Victoria Magazine and others, designing for print and web, art directing, and various artistic endeavors, I’m compelled to share an impression of the serenity I find in the simplicity of a graceful, organic line and the stillness of a suspended moment. My current work employs only tools of the earlier process – the luscious, soft brushes, nestled near my mother’s paint-splattered easel.”

Wendi Schneider is a visual artist currently working in photography and precious metals. Born in Memphis, she holds an AA in Art History from Stephens College in Columbia, MO and a BA in Painting from Newcomb/Tulane in New Orleans. She turned to photography in the early ‘80s to capture moments of her models for her paintings. Missing the sensuality of oils, she began layering glazes on her photographs to create a more personal interpretation. After she photographed, designed and produced the award-winning re-creation of the 1901 Picayune’s Creole Cook Book for The Times-Picayune, she moved to New York, where she photographed nearly 100 book covers and was a major contributor to the original Victoria Magazine. She moved to Denver in 1994, and after several decades of photography, design and art direction for clients, she recently returned to fine art photography.

Gilded vellum photographs from her current series States of Grace have been exhibited in more than 60 venues, including A Gallery For Fine Photography, The Griffin Museum of Photography and the Berlin Foto Biennale, and featured in Diffusion, B&W Magazine, Silvershotz, Adore Chroma, and as a Rule Breaker on Don’t Take Pictures. A Critical Mass finalist in 2017, Schneider has been honored by the International Photography Awards, the International Color Awards, the Gala Awards and the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards. She is represented by A Gallery For Fine Photography in New Orleans and Galeria Photo/Graphic in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Website

LENSCRATCH Wendi Schneider

When Michael Kirchoff photographs he “takes a great deal of time trying to see in a less than literal way.” He says, “The techniques and tools with each project or series often change, but the perspective, drama, and passion of the image remain consistent.” He goes on to say that his work “can be recognized by a timeless and ethereal quality where the imperfections of the subject, camera, or technique are often highlighted as an integral part of the image” where he uses wide-angle lenses and low, off kilter angles to present his subjects with depth and dimension. Kirchoff says, “Dramatic skies and dark, textural tones are a trademark in my landscape and architectural work, but can frequently be seen in my street portraits of the unsuspecting in much the same way.”

Kirchoff’s “Sanctuary,” is featured in the Griffin Gallery at the Griffin Museum of Photography from January 11 through March 4, 20187. An opening reception will take place on January 18, 2018 from 7-8:30pm. Holly Roberts will give a gallery walk/talk at 6:00 PM on January 18, 2018 that is free for members and $10 for nonmembers, followed by a reception that is open to all.

Paula Tognarelli, executive director of the Griffin Museum says, “In the trilogy of shows opening in Winchester on January 11, 2018, if there is a common element that links each to the other, it is the ability of the artists to disclose personal psychologies without vulnerability. It is this show of openness that draws us to the artists and their art-making process.”

In his ongoing project begun in 2000, “Sanctuary” is Kirchoff’s search for his own safe place. He asks himself, “If I needed to run in times of trouble or discontent, where would I go? I quickly realized my own fondness for nature and the solitude and strength that Mother Nature provided. This was a very primal pull I was feeling, an instinct of survival, like returning to the days of early human existence. Certainly though, my vague ideas existed more in my dreams than in real life, and Sanctuary for me became a place that is as dark and mysterious as it is bright and hopeful.”

Kirchoff spends a great deal of time in nature. He say of his retreat to the outdoors, “It is an escape; a safe place where one can become intimate with the elements that surround you.” He says of the images of “Sanctuary” that the “images are representative of home, and finding beauty in the often darker and fractured recesses of the mind. Each image is a mysterious place, both real and unreal, captured from the safety of my own imagination. Each has become my own Sanctuary.”

Michael Kirchoff has spent his years capturing the still image of people, cultures, and landscapes from around the world, to around the block, with a very unique and distinctive style. A native Californian, Michael resides in Los Angeles, though equally at home trudging through Redwood forests, riding the rails deep into Siberia, or navigating the chaotic streets of Tokyo.

Michael’s fine art imagery has garnered recognition from the International Photography Awards, the Prix de la Photographie in Paris, Photographers Forum, and Critical Mass. His work has been published in Harper’s, Black & White (U.S.), Black & White (U.K.), Seities, Esquire (Russia), New Statesman, Blur, Adore Noir, Fraction, SHOTS, and Diffusion Annual, as well as high profile photography blogs and sites like Lenscratch and Light Leaked. He also continues to exhibit his prints internationally in both solo and group exhibitions. Michael was also an active Board Member for the L.A. chapter of the American Photographic Artists from 2006-2016, and is an Editor at Blur Magazine.

 

Website

On October 11, 2017, the Griffin Museum opens with “Gray Matters,” an exhibition of photographs by Marina Font, Francie Bishop Good, Sandra Klein, J. Fredric May, Liz Steketee and Colleen Woolpert. This exhibition is shown under the overarching title called “Gray Matters” and opens during FlashPoint Boston. Six solo exhibits will be featured in the Main Gallery, Atelier Gallery and the Griffin Gallery of the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA.

J. Fredric May, in the Atelier Gallery at the Griffin, will exhibit “Apparition: Postcards from Eye See You” and Liz Steketee, will exhibit “Sewn” in the Griffin Gallery. Francie Bishop Good exhibits “Comus,” Marina Font’s exhibit is called “Mental Maps, Colleen Woolpert exhibits pieces from her series “Persistence of Vision” and Sandra Klein exhibits photographs from her “Noisy Brain” series.

“Gray Matters” will showcase at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA from October 11 – December 3, 2017. An opening reception takes place on Wednesday, October 11, 2017, 7 – 8:30 p.m. There will be a gallery walk with the artists at 5:45 PM on October 11, 2017.  In SoWa Boston for FlashPoint Boston through January three 48″x48″ sidewalk color vinyls will be on view featuring Francie Bishop Good, Sandra Klein and Marina Font photographs.

“Assembling the “Gray Matters” exhibition came out of a personal realization that none of us escape the aging process,” says Paula Tognarelli, executive director of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “As an aging female and as the daughter of a parent with dementia, I’ve had first hand experience of how our culture regards its elderly. I wanted an exhibition that started conversations on the value of elders coupled with a focus on how the brain influences a quality of life. Gray matter includes the regions of the brain that are the nuts and bolts of muscle control, memory, speech, perception, hearing and emotions.”

In “Noisy Brain,” Sandra Klein examines her 21^st century brain that is constantly analyzing the world around her. She also hopes to understand the universal mind. She says, “As I watch my mother experience dementia, I am stunned by the changes in the aging brain.  In creating a narrative that focuses on layers of thinking, I ponder the noises that are yet to come.”

Sandra Klein was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and received a BFA from Tyler School of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA and an MA in printmaking from San Diego State University. After working as a teacher, her art focus moved from printmaking into mixed media and fine art photography. Her practice involves conceptual imagery that explores memory and personal narratives. Her layered, often three dimensional photographs have been shown across the United States in venues such as the Center of Fine Art Photography in Colorado, Candela Gallery in Virginia, A Smith Gallery in Texas, Tilt Gallery in Arizona, Southeast Center of Photography in North Carolina, and Building Bridges, Arena 1 Gallery and the Los Angeles Center of Photography in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured on Lenscratch, A Photo Editor, Musee Magazine, What Will You Remember, and in Diffusion magazine, and is held in public collections. She will be in a four-person show at the California Museum of Art, Thousand Oaks in September 2017. She lives and works in Los Angeles.

Marina Font couples exploration of the human mind with female identity. Using metaphoric means she considers the biologic, psychological and social aspects of the female body and the intersections of these planes. She says, “With this series, I aim to approach what lies beyond control and reason, exploring, through the act of drawing with thread, embroidery, fabric and appropriated crochet pieces onto the photographic surface, the intricate mysteries of the psyche. Through these works I intend to shed imaginary light on the female experience in order to build idealized and fantastical connections to the forces of the unconscious.”

Born and raised in Argentina, Marina Font studied design at the Escuela de Artes Visuales Martin Malharro, Mar del Plata, Argentina. In the summer of 1998 she studied photography at Speos Ecole de la Photogrphie in Paris, followed by completing her MFA in Photography at Barry University, Miami in 2009. For the past ten years she’s has been working on photo-based works that explore issues of identity, gender, territory, language and the forces of the unconscious. Her work is held in several collections including the MDC Museum of Art + Design, Miami, The Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, The Boca Raton Museum of Art, The Girls’ Club Collection, Fort Lauderdale, The Bunnen Collection, Atlanta, FoLA, Fototeca Latinoamericana de Fotografia, Buenos Aires, Argentina and various important private collections around the world.

She has exhibited in numerous one-person and group shows in galleries, cultural institutions and museums including The Boca Raton Museum of Art (with RPM Projects), The Consulate General of Argentina in New York, The Deering Estate at Cutler, Miami The Appleton Museum, The Museum of Florida Art, The Nova South Eastern University, The Baker Museum, The Art Center South Florida and the Andy Gato Gallery at Barry University to name a few. She just had her fourth solo show at the Dina Mitrani Gallery, Miami. She lives and works in Miami Beach, Florida since 1997 and is represented by the Dina Mitrani Gallery.

Francie Bishop Good uses “a staccato of media” to create “a hybrid form of portraiture.” She begins with images from her mother’s and her yearbooks. She and her mother went to the same high school in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The artist says, “I cross-pollinate painting, photography, drawing, and collage with digital layering. The source material of photographs from yearbooks is something very personal yet universal. I am transforming the imagined. “Comus” was and still is the title of the yearbooks from Allentown High School.”

Born in Bethlehem, PA, Good lives and works in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US, Europe and Latin America and is included in public and private collections in the US. Her work has appeared in publications, including The Miami Herald, Art in America, and ARTnews, among others. She is represented by David Castillo Gallery in Miami, FL. Francie Bishop Good did her undergraduate work at Philadelphia College of Art, received her BFA at the University of Boulder and her Masters at Florida Atlantic College.

In 2012 J. Fredric May experienced an aortic aneurysm. His sight was irreversibly altered losing 46% of his vision rendering him legally blind. His limited vision did not stop him from producing artwork. Independent curator J. Sybylla Smith says that May’s photographs are “a hybrid of analog and digital processes that are the result of his explorations.” Additionally she says, “May begins with vintage portraits which he scans and puts through data corruption software. He then creates layered composites and prints these as cyanotypes. He bleaches and tones his cyanotypes with a mixture of photo chemicals and tea. Ultimately, he digitizes the altered cyanotypes and creates an archival pigment print.”

Fredric May is a former photojournalist and filmmaker who has traveled all over the world, telling visual stories with a signature style of bold color and confrontational composition. He resides in Palm Springs, CA with his wife.

Liz Steketee uses family photographs to speak on identity and truth telling. She deconstructs, cuts and rebuilds photographs into personas with newly conceived histories, narratives and characteristics. Memories and truth become distorted with her use of threads, everyday moments from her life, photomontage and juxtaposition. She says of her work, “I break the rules of traditional photography by mixing elements and materials that do not necessarily belong together. I allow subjects to express emotions or information long repressed, causing a shift in expectations. Finally, I explore the traditions of sewing and photography colliding and establishing new ground. This work carries subtexts for me such as, the notion of truth in photography, the connection between photographs and memories, and the visual history and impact of the tradition of portraiture.”

A resident of San Francisco, Stekette lives with her husband and two children. She maintains her own art practice and teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute where she graduated with an MFA and received the prestigious John Collier Award. In 2011, Nazraeli Press published Steketee’s work in a One Picture Book, Dystopia.

Colleen Woolpert’s “Persistence of Vision” includes photography, video, and interactive objects and installations that explore how we visualize the unseen and navigate the unknown. The Griffin Museum chose to highlight three artworks from this series.

Colleen Woolpert is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, photo educator, and stereograph specialist based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She creates still and moving images as well as interactive objects and installations that explore the nuances of vision—from visual perception itself to abstract concepts like imagination, wonder, and doubt.

Recipient of both an Individual Artist Grant and a Community Arts Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), other recognition includes Juror’s Selection from Darren Ching (Klomching Gallery) in Same But Different at the New York Center for Photographic Art and a Top Knots Award from Photo District News. Her work has been curated into exhibitions at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Humble Arts Foundation, Dumbo Arts Center, and Light Work, among other venues, and her editorial photographs have appeared in many publications including The New York Times, Bicycling, Martha Stewart Weddings, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Colleen received her MFA from Syracuse University and BA from Western Michigan University, where she currently teaches in the Photography and Intermedia Department.