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Posted on November 1, 2019

Phantom Power
Barbara Diener
January 9 – March 1, 2020

Reception January 16, 2020 7-8:30 PM
Barbara Diener gallery talk at 6:15 on January 16, 2019

green lights on stairs

Artist Statement
In my previous body of work, Sehnsucht, I photographed in small, rural towns that triggered childhood memories. During that process I met and became fascinated with a woman named Kathy. She owns the diner in her town and lives on her husband’s family farm, which is haunted by his ancestors. Her belief in the spectral sparked my own interest in the unexplained and ties back to my ongoing curiosity about religion, spirituality and the human desire to believe that something else happens after we die and that a part of us-the spirit or soul-continues on.

The camera is a crucial tool for most paranormal investigators, so it was a natural step for me to become an amateur ghost hunter myself. Photography has been linked to the spirit world since the 1860s with the popularity of spirit photography and post-mortem portraits. Since its invention photography has lent a sense of immortality to its subjects. In recent years the paranormal has received amplified media attention through numerous ‘reality’ television programs that sensationalize any phenomena for the camera. On the contrary my approach is self-reflective and curious. To make the resulting images I have adopted both traditional and contemporary methods of capturing the invisible, as well as employed my own interpretation of the magical and mystical.

Bio
Born in 1982 in Germany Barbara Diener received her Bachelor of Fine Art in photography from the California College of the Arts and Masters in Fine Art in Photography from Columbia College Chicago.

Her work has been exhibited at Alibi Fine Art, Chicago, IL, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, Hyde Park Art Center, Hyde Park, IL, David Weinberg Gallery, Chicago, IL, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM, Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA, Invisible Dog Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Lilllstreet Art Center, Chicago, IL, Riverside Art Center, Chicago, IL. Pingyao Photo Festival, China, The Arcade, Chicago, IL, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, Philadelphia, PA, Darkroom Gallery, Essex Junction, VT and Project Basho, Philadelphia, PA among others. Diener’s photographs are part of several private and institutional collections including the New Mexico Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

In 2013 Diener was selected to participate in several highly ambitious and competitive artist residency programs, the Fields Project in Oregon, IL, ACRE in Steuben, WI, and HATCH Projects through the Chicago Artist Coaltition.

Diener is a winner of Flash Forward 2013, the recipient of a Follett Fellowship at Columbia College Chicago and was awarded the Albert P. Weisman Award in 2012 and 2013. In addition Diener received an Individual Artist Grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Events in 2015 and 2018. She is the Collection Manager in the Department of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago and teaches photography at the School of the Art Institute.

In June 2018 Daylight Books published Diener’s first book Phantom Power.

Review What Will You Remember

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Floor Plan

Amy Rindskopf's Terra Novus

At the market, I pick each one up, pulled in by the shapes as they sit together, waiting. I feel its heft in my hand, enjoy the textures of the skin or peel, and begin to look closer and closer. The patterns on each individual surface marks them as distinct. I push further still, discovering territory unseen by the casual observer, a new land. I am like a satellite orbiting a distant planet, taking the first-ever images of this newly envisioned place.

This project started as an homage to Edward Weston’s Pepper No. 30 (I am, ironically, allergic to peppers). As I looked for my subject matter at the market, I found that I wasn’t drawn to just one single fruit or vegetable. There were so many choices, appealing to both hand and eye. I decided to print in black and white to help make the images visually more about the shapes, and not about guessing which fruit is smoothest, which vegetable is greenest.

Artistic Purpose/Intent

Artistic Purpose/Intent

Tricia Gahagan

 

Photography has been paramount in my personal path of healing from disease and

connecting with consciousness. The intention of my work is to overcome the limits of the

mind and engage the spirit. Like a Zen koan, my images are paradoxes hidden in plain

sight. They are intended to be sat with meditatively, eventually revealing greater truths

about the world and about one’s self.

 

John Chervinsky’s photography is a testament to pensive work without simple answers;

it connects by encouraging discovery and altering perspectives. I see this scholarship

as a potential to continue his legacy and evolve the boundaries of how photography can

explore the human condition.

 

Growing my artistic skill and voice as an emerging photographer is critical, I see this as

a rare opportunity to strengthen my foundation and transition towards an established

and influential future. I am thirsty to engage viewers and provide a transformative

experience through my work. I have been honing my current project and building a plan

for its complete execution. The incredible Griffin community of mentors and the

generous funds would be instrumental for its development. I deeply recognize the

hallmark moment this could be for the introduction of the work. Thank you for providing

this incredible opportunity for budding visions and artists that know they have something

greater to share with the world.

Fran Forman RSVP