Griffin Museum of Photography

Life Companion

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Statement
This series has been made over three years, while I was visiting home, South Korea, for summer and winter break. My grandmother was attending to the care of my grandfather who suffered from dementia. They were married for sixty years, each other’s lifetime companions, and then my grandmother became the caregiver whose work was unrelenting. These photographs reflect their bond, but also my grandmother’s struggle and fatigue. Their world was centered at home because my grandfather often gets out of control when he is outside of the house. My work continued after my grandfather’s death observing my grandmother’s new experience being alone. Photographing in such a limited environment has made me pay close attention to subtleties of gesture and the meaning for spatial relationships between them. – Sora Woo

Bio
Sora Woo (b.1991) is a visual artist andphotographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her works concentrate on observing the spatial relationship between humans and place. Woo is interested in discovering the threads of human interaction and what occurs after the absence of a person. Woo’s photographs capture a moment in the slow process of the passage of time. She not only depicts the passing of time, but also points out the physical and spiritual aspects of the “Irreversible”. Sora received her MFA from Pratt Institute, New York in 2018 and BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York in 2015.

Website

Lee Kilpatrick: Together

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Statement

I am fascinated by group gatherings, such as holidays, or outings with family or a regular group of friends. Repeated over time, the group activity becomes more familiar, ritualized and expected, and fosters levels of interaction, which are increasingly informal. Even if some within the group are less than enthusiastic about individual interactions, the repeated interactions deepen over time, and the life of the group starts to transcend the sum of its individuals. I am illustrating the group experience with panoramas, where the long aspect ratio allows the viewer to see the group from the perspective of a member.

 

Bio

Lee Kilpatrick is a fine art photographer and the director of the Washington Street gallery and studios in Somerville, MA. His primary focus is fine-art documentary in both digital and film. His work usually depicts people in everyday but intimate situations; the subjects seem to be in their own private worlds, conscious of neither the camera nor themselves. As opposed to “photographing people”, he photographs their interaction – and lack of interaction – with their environment. Along with conventional formats, he also uses panoramic photography, to present a closer view of the subject set in a wide view of the environment.

Kilpatrick’s recent work includes “Splendid Isolation: Late Summer in Northern Maine,” portraying the agricultural area where he grew up, and “A Case Of You,” documenting his sister who died at 42 after years of mental illness and alcoholism.

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Elliot Schildkrout: Homage to the Forest

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Artist Statement:

Over the years, the woods, a lifelong cherished place for me, have deepened as a source of spiritual nourishment. As the forest turns with the seasons, I too, see the woods in a larger spiral that links together life, death, and our fragile dependence on the other. We breathe each other’s breath, and we share each other’s fate.

In the last few years, I moved from doing traditional landscape work to making multiple exposures in camera.   As images mixed together in color and time, I welcomed the unexpected serendipity of the process. Blending layers, changing colors, mixing movement with clarity captured for me a deeper sense of the forest’s mystery and my relationship to it. It’s never the same, and I have reveled in the surprise.

But the images also spoke to me of another more ominous theme that has been with me for a long time — the slow and relentless advance of climate change.  I was photographing while California burned, and I deeply felt how out of balance we (I) have become with nature’s restorative rhythm. I fear I have irrevocably turned way from that responsibility. Our hand reaches deep into nature’s ever spinning web, and of course, at the same time we are simply a part of its evolutionary song. My pictures help me slow down a bit, so I can retune, and at least pay some homage to this forest home of ours.

Bio

Elliot Schildkrout began photography in the 1960s in a course with Lisette Model at the New School in New York City. His early years were consumed with studying the works of Edward Weston, Harry Callahan, and Aaron Siskind. At the University of Rochester, Elliot studied with William Giles, a student of Minor White. While practicing medicine, he continued making photographs and was accepted into the Polaroid collection. For several years Elliot worked with SX-70 and 4×5 Polaroid materials; one of his images was published in Barbara Hitchcock’s book, The Polaroid Collection. Since retiring from medical practice, his photographic subjects have shifted from urban scenes to landscapes, ones increasingly captured from a more internal, spiritual perspective. Elliot’s current work, Wonderland, focuses on multiple in-camera imagery. He is represented by the 555 Gallery, which moved from its Boston Gallery space to ARTSY. All photographs are courtesy of the artist and 555 Gallery. You can view his work both on ARTSY and on his website: elliotschildkroutphotography.com and Instagram: @elliotschildkrout

The Rug’s Topography

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Statement
“The Rug’s Topography” began with me photographing my intimate partner of six years. Simultaneously, we were facing an internal conflict: how we identified as individuals differed from the roles we occupied in our partnership. As we began to grow apart romantically, our anxieties rose in response to the distance widening between us. Our individual identities within a romantic context stemmed from the commonality of both having witnessed predominantly cisgender roles during our formative years. Our performance of those expectations was perpetuated by inexperience and an impulse to adhere to, or in my case “correct,” our potential family structure. Recognizing a shared inherent foundation opened our dialogue and together we began unpacking our preconceived notions regarding societal norms. Collaborating visually to express our reflections served as a catalyst for the reconciling of our emotional intimacy in the midst of separation. It is through the juxtaposition of gaze and gesture we create blended self-portraits, expressing our emotions in relation to who we were and who we’ll become.

My photographs employ themes of tension, voyeurism, and transition to represent interpretation of self. I construct images that balance organic intimacy and cinematic theatricality by implementing symbolism, color theory, and seductive lighting. Using a directorial approach and a single subject allows me to create an environment that transforms viewer into voyeur. The singular vantage point and lack of reciprocal gaze invites one to silently observe an unfolding narrative. However, the personal account is never fully described and the viewer must bring their own history, biases, and prejudices to interpret the imagery. Transition within this work is highlighted through the notions of gender and time. Though the viewer is privy to feminine interventions placed upon the male figure, faint physical changes sequentially manifest in the subject. Rigid musculature and posture is overcome by delicate and poetic gestures; the manicuring of body also becomes a form of sublimation. The ambient photographs, which signify fleeting moments, mark points of personal evolution. Emphasis is placed on the threshold between public and private, as well as the implied or literal mirror embodying introspection. Life comprises moments navigating both the literal and psychological space; my intention is to render that dichotomy.

Bio
Rana Young is an artist and educator based in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Rana holds an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln where she was an Othmer Fellow and a BFA in Studio Art from Portland State University. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, as well as published online by Hyperallergic, VICE, Huffington Post, British Journal of Photography, and The New York Times, among others. Recently, Rana was selected as a winner of Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward 2018 and LensCulture’s 2017 Emerging Talent Awards. Rana launched PHOTO–EMPHASIS, an online platform for highlighting contemporary works made by photography educators, students, and practitioners, with Alec Kaus in June 2017. In collaboration with Kris Graves Projects, Rana released her first monograph, The Rug’s Topography, in January 2019.

Website

Paul Szynol: Solitude of Travel

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Statement
“Solitude of Travel” documents a period of persistent travel: in the space of a decade, I passed through some 60 countries on 4 continents, often repeatedly and for prolonged periods of time.  I traveled without any overarching reason or direction, but I think even then I suspected that the pressing impulse to board yet another flight had to do with confronting a stubborn (and maybe endemic to immigrants) sense of displacement.

Steady movement through national boundaries gave me an illusion of global familiarity: new places seemed immediately recognizable upon arrival, if only by virtue of sharing features and characteristics with somewhere else I’d visited. But, at the same time, each location felt distant and inaccessible. And the sense of separation spread to places where I had lived for years, so that my connection to any one spot weakened and faded. It was a liberating sense of disorientation, and a disorienting sense of liberty. It was also deeply isolating: paradoxically, as I grew attached to new places, I simultaneously felt connected to everywhere and nowhere.

The photographs I took during this time are a testament to the constant sense of remove.  I think of them as a set of anti-postcards: whereas the typical travel photo celebrates arrival at recognizable destinations, usually in saturated color, most of the black and whites in this series document places that aren’t on the tourist map.  Moreover, though the pictures ostensibly document places, in reality they capture my own sense of steady separation: they are invariably framed from a distance, and, in all of them, the ultimate destination I might have longed—that is, the elusive sense of home and immersion—remains unreachable.

Bio
Paul is a filmmaker as well as a media and tech lawyer. His films have been featured on the New York Times Op-Docs, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker, and have been shown at festivals internationally, including AFI Docs, Big Sky, Clermont-Ferrand, Doc NYC, Slamdance, and TIFF. His photos have been exhibited in the US and Europe, including ICP in New York City and the Leica Gallery in Warsaw.

Paul was born in Warsaw, Poland, and moved to NYC at the age of 12, the year that the city’s transit fare rose from 75 cents to 90 cents; 33 previously unknown Bach pieces were found in an academic library; and Canon demoed its first digital still camera. Besides New York City and Warsaw, he’s lived in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Alexandria (VA), Berkeley, New Haven, Philadelphia, NJ, DC, and, for shorter periods, Kampala and Berlin. During his seven drives across the US, he’s visited the vast majority of the contiguous states, and, by train, plane or automobile, he’s also visited some 60 countries. He likes stray dogs, fair use, depressing movies, trains, Greene and Kundera, Uganda, open source software, the Oxford comma, and occasionally translating Polish poetry to English.

Paul is a graduate of Columbia University, where he studied history and philosophy, and Yale Law School, where he focused on free speech and intellectual property, and watched a lot of reruns and depressing movies.

Website

 

William Glaser: My Father, the Cowboy Actor

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Statement
My Father, The Cowboy Actor

On December 19th, my Father made a surprise visit to my apartment in New York City. He got in late the night before from Flagstaff, Arizona and stayed the night at an old friend’s apartment in the Upper West Side. When he called me, I wasn’t sure what to expect or what to say since I hadn’t seen him in several years. When he came to my apartment, I made a portrait of him, and subsequently followed him around while he showed me what stood in place of his favorite bars, restaurants, and stores he used to peruse when he lived in New York City. After a week of being with my Father again, I realized I had to follow him back to his cabin in rural Arizona to photograph him and live with my Father for the first time.

For the first twenty-three years of my life, I never had a stable nor strong relationship with my Father. He was a distant member of our family that paid for our expenses, demanded time to see us on the weekend but was pushed away due to family dynamics and my preferred affiliation for my Mother. His career as an actor in New York City lasted twenty-five years, and upon the release of his children to higher education in places far from our hometown, he promptly left to become a cowboy just outside Flagstaff, Arizona. It’s only now that I’m beginning to comprehend the broken connection I have with my Father that I never cared to fix or understand. The man, my Father, Charles Glaser, is an enigmatic character and I attempt to comprehend his being and our relationship through Photography and Dialogue. By revisiting Charles’s old letters, documents and living with my Father in the desert, I attempt to trace my Father’s psychological journey while photographing his current self and the high desert that surrounds him.

Bio
William Glaser received his BFA in Photography from The Savannah College of Art & Design and travels extensively across the United States. William’s photographs celebrate regional- specific individuals and objects while exploring possible narratives.

Website

What I Know So Far

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Statement
I am a self-described wallflower, rooted in the private mysteries of home and family. My images are my story, as told by a mostly reliable narrator.  The subjects I photograph are gathered from my immediate surroundings:  my children, our beloved dog, household artifacts, and the natural world outside our door.  Individually, each image is a story in itself.  Taken as a whole, this work is a fable of motherhood, love, and the inevitability of loss.

Though my pictures are personal documents of my life as I imagine it, I construct each vignette to be allegorical.  I build scenes like miniature stage sets, often tucked into quiet corners of my house, using the natural light of a hallway window to illuminate them. While my themes come out of my experience watching my children grow up and away, I try to avoid specific references to our time or place.  An antique bowl and the collar of a soldier’s uniform are clues to my history, but they are not meant to lead all viewers to the same conclusion. My subjects are commonplace, but I make them iconic through carefully balanced compositions.  The inherent stillness of this formality is often contradicted by a sense of impending drama. My work is meant to be deceptively calm and forcefully serene.  I like the underlying tensions at play and the uncertainty they create: formality versus familiarity, the mix of the real with make believe, the mundane made beautiful.

Inevitably, each of these quiet moments will slip away, leaving the image as proof of an enduring narrative.  Within families there are moments of intimacy and solitude.  The present is continually falling into the past.  Love and loss are inextricably linked.  -JH

Bio
Jackie Heitchue’s nomadic childhood spanned the country, from the suburbs of Los Angeles to Ohio and Virginia.  Finally settling in New England with her husband and children, the move felt like a homecoming, a sentiment borne out by a newly unearthed family lineage of Puritans, indentured servants, and an unfortunate Salem witch.  Ruminating over these historic connections while engrossed in the daily minutia of child-rearing, Jackie became fascinated with the universal themes of family and motherhood that connect one generation to the next. She began photographing her son and daughter as they grew and changed over the years.  While her images are deeply personal, they also stand as allegories for the milestones that all families traverse.

Heitchue has worked as a photographer most of her life.  After graduating with a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art, she was an award-winning photojournalist for a chain of newspapers in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.  From there, she worked as a master printer at the Library of Congress, and taught photography to high school students in Virginia. Her current work has shown in several galleries in New England, including a solo show at the Griffin Museum of Photography.  Farther afield, her work was selected for publication and exhibition in the Portfolio Showcase at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado.  She has also shown at the Southeast Center for Photography in South Carolina and the Candela Gallery in Virginia.

Website

Elin Spring, What Will You Remember

J. Felice Boucher: Center of Quiet

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Statement
My fine art photography is still and direct, and closely parallels my meditation practices. All sense of time and place is set aside when I focus on a photograph’s creation. Although much of my time is invested in commercial photograph my fine art work is grounded in my passion of photography, painting, design and color.

Bio
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. 

Into the Night In the Middle of Nowhere

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Article Harvard Magazine, July August 2019

Mark Feeney’s Globe Review

What Will You Remember’s Review

Statement
For over a dozen years I have gone to a place in Southern New Hampshire, in August and photographed the night. Beginning around 10pm the stars appeared: thousands of them- a sight so enchanting I stand there in silent awe. These are long exposures, 45 minutes to an hour and strange things happen: mists come and cover the lens, stars streak and moons rise and fall. No ambient light intrudes other than my flashlight or the occasional house lights. More recently I’ve gone to the Southwest where the night sky is too brilliant to imagine. Amoung the great rocks and giant saguaros, another kind of magic takes hold and once more, my handheld flash lights shape the image.

Bio

Received a BFA from Syracuse University, MA from Rutgers University, and MFA from Syracuse University (all in Visual Arts).

Painter, photographer. Writes art criticism and articles on the visual arts for arts magazines. Photography teacher for over twenty-five years at New York University.

2016
NJSCA Artist Fellowship for Works on Paper.

2015
Arthur Griffin Legacy Award, Griffin Museum,

2009
Honorable Mention in FineArts Photography Lucie Awards.

Four-time recipient of NJSCA fellowship award. Numerous one-person shows, most recently in Hunterdon Museum of Art Clinton, NJ, Medellin, Columbia, Taipei,Taiwan, Lubbock, Texas and New York City. Curated several exhibits, including ”Memory & Loss”, a five-person photo-based exhibit at the Mary Anthony Gallery in New York City. Her work is in several notable corporate, museum and private collections. Recent publications about her work include Photography’s Antiquarian Avant-Garde, by Lyle Rexer, Abrams Publishing, Light & Lens,Photography in the Digital Age, & Photographic Possibilitiesby Robert Hirsch, Focal Press as well as several other photography books. Photo Insider Magazinefeatured an interview with her about her work in their June issue 2001.

Her co-curated exhibit (with Orville Robertson) “Manifestations: Photographs of Men”, opened at the Southeast Museum of photography in 2004.

Collections include Pfizer Corporation, New York, NY, The Buhl Collection, New York, NY, Southern Alleghenies Museum, Loretto, PA, Colombo Centro Americano, Medellin,Colombia, Prudential Insurance Company, Newark,NJ, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Lawrenceville, NJ,  Taiwan Photo-Fest, Taipei, Taiwan, Nantong Museum, China, Brooklyn Museum Artist Books Collection, Newark Public Library Artist Books Collection, Philadelphia Free Public Library, PNC Corp., New Brunswick, NJ, and Provident Bank, NJ

Website

Serás mis ojos

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What Will You Remember’s Review

Mark Feeney’s Globe Review

Lenscratch Article


Statement
I have lived in California since 1998, but Buenos Aires remains my home – it anchors and feeds my soul.

I’ve always believed that we are three-dimensional beings, constantly living in the context of place. Everything we experience, everything we recall is intractably embedded in a specifc node of time and space. In my quest to adapt to living in the United States – in a place that is not mine, I began to lose my connection to myself, my identity and my grounding.

On one of my trips to Buenos Aires in 2011 with my camera in hand, I decided to revisit the place I knew so well and start at the beginning. I photographed things that have been a very important part of my life – family photographs, my first communion dress, my aunt’s house, places I’d visited with my father who passed away when I was a teenager. Like a jig saw puzzle, the pieces started coming together, re-creating my history and journey, reconstructing a life that had begun to feel no longer in sharp focus.

Just as I started this reconstruction of time and place, my aunt was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. When I told her about my project, she told me how much she enjoyed photography when she was young and with tears in her eyes, she said “I am so happy you decided to photograph your home and collect your memories, because I am losing mine… so go out there, see for me, remember for me, you shall be my eyes”.

I am her eyes now, but also mine. As she slowly forgets who she is, I remember who I am. This journey has allowed me to rediscover the universal quest of self, collecting the pieces that had been left behind and occupying the spaces that had been left vacant. -ER

Bio

Eleonora Ronconi was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work focuses on memory, family and documenting the idea of home,  based on her experiences as an immigrant.

After four years in Medical School, she had a change of heart and received a BA in Scientific Literary Translation and Conference Interpreting in her hometown of Buenos Aires.

She has taken intensive photographic workshops at Santa Fe Photography Workshops, Maine Media Workshops and LACP among others. Workshop instructors included Sam Abell, Ed Kashi, Mary Ellen Mark and Cig Harvey.

Her work has been selected to participate in several exhibitions at the Triton Museum, Griffin Museum, Building Bridges Art Gallery, Rayko Photo Center, Verve Gallery and San Francisco Arts Commission in the US, Festival de la Luz in Buenos Aires, and Fotofever in Paris among others. Her first solo exhibition was in her native Buenos Aires in 2009.

Her photographs have been featured in publications such as A Photo Editor, Aesthetica Magazine, Le Journal de la Photographie, Palo Alto Weekly, Lenscratch and Fraction Magazine among others.

She has resided and worked in California since 1998.

CV

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 
2019 Seras mis ojos, Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA
2011 Online exhibition “Emerging Artist”, VERVE Gallery, Santa Fe

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (select)
2019 Context, Filter Photo, Chicago, IL
2018 Colorado Photographic Art Center, Denver, CO
2017 Fotofever, Paris
2017 California Rising, Fabrik Gallery, Culver City, CA
2017 Foresaken, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC
2017 LACP, Annual Juried Exhibition, Los Angeles, CA
2017 All Women Are Dangerous, Building Bridges Art Gallery, Bergamot Station, Los Angeles, CA
2017 9Topics, Arthill Gallery, London, UK
2016 Same but different, New York Center for Photographic Art, NY
2015 Fotofever Fair, Fabrik Projects Booth, Paris
2015 The Rights of Summer, Ripe Art Gallery, Huntington, NY
2015 Still, A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX
2015 Portfolio Showcase, Davis Orton Gallery, NY
2014 Poemas revelados, Escuela Argentina de Fotografía, Festival de la Luz, Buenos Aires, Argentina
2014 Illuminate the Arts, Street Art Project, San Francisco, CA
2014 The Perimeter of the World, Rayko Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2014 20th Juried Exhibition, Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA
2014 Open Show LA
2014 Six Shooters, Venice Arts, Los Angeles, CA
2013 MobileMagic Exhibit, LightBox Gallery, Astoria, OR
2013 19th Juried Exhibition, Griffin Museum of Photography, MA
2013 Paper @ The Adobe, Adobe Gallery, Castro Valley, CA
2013 New Directions: Beautiful My Desire, Wall Space Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
2013 Take Me Away, San Francisco Arts Commission, SF City Hall
2012 (Un)familiar, APA SF Curator’s Voice Exhibition, Carte Blanche, San Francisco, CA
2012 Altered images, Prix de la Photographie, Paris
2012 MOPLA + Smashbox Group Show, Smashbox Studios, Culver City, CA
2012 Statewide Photography Exhibition, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA
2012 iSpy: Camera Phone Photography, The Kiernan Gallery, Lexington, VA
2011 Dreams, Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO
2011 9 photographers, The Lightroom Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2011 Portraits, Adobe Gallery, Castro Valley, CA
2011 The Pints & Pixels Competition, MOPLA, Hollywood, CA
2011 Pixels@OCCCA, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA
2011 Human+Being, Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO
2011 Annual Juried Exhibition, Center for Photographic Art, Carmel, CA
2010 Dominant Color, The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards
2010 Por(trait) Revealed, RayKo Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 Annual Exhibition, Palo Alto Art Center, CA
2010 Gala Exhibition for the 10th Anniversary of the Friends of Hue Foundation, San Jose, CA
2009 Magic in the Mix, Photo Central Gallery, Hayward, CA
2008 Group Book exhibition, ModernBook Gallery, Palo Alto, CA

AWARDS
2018 Top 200, Critical Mass
2018 Director’s Choice, Colorado Photographic Art Center
2016 Honorable mention and Juror’s Selection, Same but Different, NY
2015 Best in Show, The Rights of Summer, NY
2012 Finalist Critical Mass
2012 Honorable Mention, (Un)familiar, APA SF Curator’s Voice Exhibition, Carte Blanche Gallery, San Francisco
2012 Honorable Mention, Altered Images, Prix de la Photographie Paris
2012 Honorable Mention, Statewide Photography Exhibition, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara
2011 Honorable Mention, What happens at night, Terra Bella exhibition
2010 Special Mention of the Jury, Dominant Color, The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards
2010 Third place and Special Mention of the Jury, Palo Alto Weekly Contest

PRINT
2015 Adore Chroma Magazine, January Issue
2013 Aesthetica Magazine, Issue 55 (printed and online feature)
2013 Fraction Yearbook 2012
2012 The Santa Clara Weekly
2011 P1xels publication, OCCCA April Issue
2011 Center for Photographic Art Juried Exhibition Catalog
2010 Palo Alto Weekly
2009 Tri-City Voice Newspaper
2009 Department of Labor, Maine
2008 Newsletter Friends of Hue Foundation

ONLINE
2017 Underexposed Magazine, April
2015 Photo of the Day, Don’t Take Pictures
2015 Lenscratch, Finding Home
2013 Wall Space Gallery Flat File (Of Lights and Shadows)
2013 Wall Space Gallery Flat File (Once Upon A Time)
2012 Fraction Magazine
2012 F Stop Magazine
2012 June, July and August Le Journal de la Photographie
2012 OriginArte, Buenos Aires, April feature
2011 Dead Porcupine Magazine, Italy
2011 Lenscratch Blog  August

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