In her body of work titled The World is 9, Aïda Muluneh creates wonderful portraits inspired traditional African body art. In this series, she explores “whether we can live in this world with full contentment.”
Go visit Aïda’s website and view more of her wonderful work.
These images are photographs! Not paintings from one of the Hudson River School of painters! And I really love the painterly style in Karen Klinedinst’s body of work, The Emotional Landscape.
It’s worth checking out the rest of Karen’s work on her website.
Love at fist sight is how I would describe my feeling when I first came across Teresa Meier’s work.
I love the stories her work tells!
Awakening
Hubris and Hamartia—Allies and Enemies
Flight
Waiting
Waiting recently won the Juror’s award in the Fictional Narrative exhibition at the Photo Place gallery in Vermont opening up December 6, and will be up until January 5. Waiting and Hubris and Hamartia also can both be seen at the Portland Art Museum Rental Sales Gallery.
If you can’t see her work in person at either gallery, grab your favorite beverage and go check out her website!
I’ve been a long-time admirer of the husband and wife duo Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison.
They’re work is conceptual, and centers around the “Every Man,” who interacts with the landscape and works tirelessly to repair the damage done by man’s insatiable desire for expansion and advancement.
I came across Diana Bloomfield on Instagram earlier this year, and have been quite fond of her work ever since.
For Diana, photographs and memories are inseparable. She often works with gum bichromate, as the process and it’s resulting softness add to the feeling of the photograph’s relationship to memory.
During this year, Diana has been working on creating a piece of art every day, and as part of that project, she has been photographing flowers from her garden, and I love these botanical portraits.
View more of Diana’s fabulous work on her website, and check out her Instagram feed!
Susan Rankaitis has some beautiful work. She began as a painter, the sciences have been an influence on her work.
See more of her work on her website.
I came across Marion Belanger’s work some time ago, and I really like her aesthetic.
View more of Marion’s fantastic work on her website.
Dornith Doherty was given access to several seed banks across the world and, using the on-site x-ray equipment gathers images and then arranges them into collages. She also was able to photograph the facilities where these seeds are preserved.
Millennium Seed Bank Research Seedlings and Lochner-Stuppy Test Garden no. 2
Columbian Exchange I
Columbian Exchange III
Entry Tunnel, Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Collection of Drying Plant Genetic Researches, Geneva, New York
Millenium Seed Bank Vault Interior, England
View more of her Archiving Eden work and so much more over at her website.
Mary Sloane has some interesting work of dilapidated billboards along highways in the American Southwest.
There's something I really love about Mary's aesthetic and the bland, bleak landscapes in which these billboards reside.
Check out more of Mary's work at marycsloane.com
"Time is the shape of an old oak as the winds caress and sculpt the bark, defining the hardship and beauty. Time is the trunk that splits apart in great age to accommodate the tempest. Evidence of time is revealed in the furrowed bark of an ancient tree, gnarled, crooked, and beautiful," says Beth Moon in her artist statement for her body of work titled Portraits of Time. Trees are a great subject to use to define time, and Beth's photographs in Portraits of Time are sublime. From ancient Baobab trees that can live to be over 2000 years old (The Panke Baobab in Zimbabwe died in 2011 and was around 2500 years old), to giant oak trees, to towering cedars, these photographs show the majesty and awe of some of the organisms that grow on this planet.
Her body of work, Island of the Dragon's Blood does much the same thing, focusing on the dragon's blood trees (a name given by the scarlet colored resin that flows through them) and other flora of Socotra, an island in the Arabian Sea.
Beth has some really great work, which you can see on her website.
I just love the digital composites of Maggie Taylor. They’re all so playful and whimsical! Especially her two bodies of work that illustrate Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass.
It’s Always Tea Time
Explain Yourself
All The Better
Beware The Jabberwock
The Same Story
Night Watch
Here’s a video that provides some great context and behind the scenes looks at her process.
To see more of Maggie’s work, visit her website.
I've long been an admirer of and influenced by the work of collaborative duo James Hajicek and Carol Panaro-Smith. I discovered their photogenic drawing work around 2004-2005 when I was really getting into making Lumen prints.
Their work hearkens back to, and indeed is directly born from William Henry Fox Talbot, the originator of photogenic drawings, the experiments for which began in 1834. He discovered that paper coated with a salt solution, then brushed with silver nitrate turned black when exposed to light, and a final coat of salt halted that darkening. He then made what is essentially a photogram, placing botanical specimens on the sensitized paper, and exposing it to sunlight. Thus, the "photogenic drawing," and one of the first successful photographic processes was born.
Today, James and Carol use variations of Talbot’s early formulas, and create beautiful pieces that are layered, possess depth, and have fantastic textures. I remember being stunned at the colors and textures the first time I saw their work, and those same feelings return each time I look at their work.
Earth Vegetation 08/17
Their compositions are so simple and organic, as if they clamped the plants between the glass and paper right where the plants grew out of the dirt.
Earth Vegetation 06/01
A paragraph, and specifically the last half of it, of their artist statement for their latest body of work, Arc of Departure, resonates in me, and describes the experience of making this sort of work so much better than I’ve been able to in the past:
“The work evolved in stages from its initial intellectual underpinnings through a focus on the physicality of the remaining organic artifact to the spirituality of experiencing “the awe” of being in the immediate presence of this sacred transformative act - magic in its very essence, ruled by serendipity, elusive mysteries, fugitive images, and the ruling master of all – the ultimate impermanence of everything.”
Arc of Departure 09/09
Be sure to visit their website, and you can read an article about their work on Lenscratch. It’s well worth it to spend some time with their work, which can be seen at the Joseph Bellows Gallery, the photo-eye Gallery, and the Tilt Gallery.
Ann Mason-Hoerter combines more than 50 individual photographs to create beautiful botanical portraits.
Check our more of her work on her website.
Diane Meyer has some really great photographs mixed with embroidery.
Former Guard Tower Off Puschkinallee, Hand Sewn Archival Ink Jet Print, 2013
“By having the embroidery take the form of digital pixels, I am making a connection between forgetting and digital file corruption. I am interested in the porous nature of memory as well the means by which photography transforms history into nostalgic objects that obscure objective understandings of the past.”
Erna-Berger Strasse, Hand Sewn Archival Ink Jet Print, 2013
Former Wall Area Between Rudow And Altglienicke, Hand Sewn Archival Ink Jet Print, 2013
View more of her work on her website.
I really love the work of Korean photographer Seung Hoon Park (or Park Seung Hoon).
Montmartre 1 (Textus #252)
Park works with an 8x10 camera, and 8mm and 16mm film strips. He makes two exposures, then weaves the strips of film together. I love the discontinuous and misaligned nature of his pieces.
Textus #053-1
You can check out more of his work and read more about his process by following one of the links below:
https://susanspiritusgallery.com/artist/seung-hoon-park/
https://www.artsy.net/artist/park-seung-hoon
https://theartling.com/en/artists/seung-hoon-park/
http://www.lifestyleasia.com/413789/moment-photographer-seung-hoon-park/
Back in college, I took a book arts class, where we learned to make our own books, and learned several ways of stitching signatures together. One of the assignments was to alter a found book in a way that it changed the narrative of the story, or eliminated it altogether. Ever since, I've loved handcrafted books, and altered books as pieces of art. So when I saw a piece of Cara Barer's through Klompching Gallery, I was stunned.
Cara mentions that a "chance encounter with a Houston Yellow Pages" served as the inspiration for her work. After that, she began searching out other books and how to recreate what she'd seen from that phone book.
Visit Cara's website to view more of her work.
Melinda Hurst Frye is a Seattle-based artist, who uses a scanner in her work to create fictional scenes of plants and their root systems, and the creepy crawly bugs that live under our feet.
For her Underneath body of work, she started out in her front yard, where she would dig a hole big enough to fit her scanner, let the dirt settle for a few days, and then return and place the scanner in the hole, add any insects that she didn't want to add to the scene in post production and scan an image. She makes 5-30 scans of the scene, with lights aimed strategically, and sticks propping the scanner up to keep it still. Afterwards, she scans other insects, or visits Burke Museum of National History and Culture, and photographs taxidermy specimens of moles, or groundhogs in their labs.
This work evolved from an exploration of what was above the earth by scanning high resolution "portraits" of insects, and grubs, caterpillars, and larvae, but her interest in what is hidden led her to start digging into the ground and scanning the critters found below the surface. This play then brought her to her current process of placing the scanner in the holes she digs.
I love the playful and experimental nature and quality of Melinda's work!
I asked Melinda about her influences, and she responded with this:
“My experience as a mother has had a big impact on my work. I mine my personal life for subject matter, and kids are pretty consuming. Their initial wonder and exploration of nature, watching insects and digging in the soil, have been a big influence on my work. I want each image to present or inspire curiosity in the viewer, the kind that echoes what we felt as kids when spotting a bug in a flower or under the leaves. Additionally, the general aesthetic (lighting, color palette, and tableaux-like compositions) of Dutch master still life paintings helps me make certain decisions when building an image. When I get stuck, I go to them.
I adore Louis Bourgeois and her spider series—specifically Maman* in Ottawa. First off, it is 30 feet high and when you stand under it you feel like prey, it is an experience rather than something you walk by. I connect with her nod to motherhood in the piece: motherhood that is less saccharine or huggy, and more raw and sharp. Still loving, however, packaged in a leggy spider that is not interested in our acceptance, but the survival of her babies.
Lori Nix and Julie Blackmon are big faves with their narrative photographs and unique approaches. I can stare at those images for days. Both Emmet Gowin and Harry Callahan made imagery of their family that are so tender and kind. Recently I saw an image by Gowin of his wife Edith with silhouettes of moths** all over the image and I just about
died. All of my worlds came together in that piece.”
Head on over to Melinda's website to view more of her work, and then go follow her on Instagram!
I don’t remember exactly when or how I discovered the work of Klea McKenna, but I’ve been following her Instagram feed for a while now. She makes photograms of rubbings of photographic paper rubbed on cross sections of trees, and cracks in rock and cement. Think of the rubbings of tree bark and rocks you did as a kid with crayon, but done in the dark with light sensitive paper instead and then exposed to light. The resulting prints are really quite intriguing and beautiful, and the process involved is pretty impressive.
Other work involves her making photograms of raindrops that fell on her photo paper, or spider webs in a forest, or grass collected from the landscape.
Linda Foard Roberts has some really breathtaking work. There is so much emotion and depth in her photographs. It's been a while since I've been impacted so deeply and emotionally by someone's photographs. At least in a way that is deeper than just seeing a nice photograph and recognizing/acknowledging the skill or craftsmanship of the photographer, and their ability to compose a photograph. These images stir up memories! They bring you right in to Linda's world, and make you feel as if you're a part of it as well. Many of them have such a dreamy quality to them.
Wisdom
My Mother’s Grace
Last Day of Winter
Limbs, over 100 years old
Spared Tree
The Road Home
Fallen
Aging Grace
Tree, which held our old swing
A Measure of Time, both thirteen years old
Nicole at Fifteen
I asked Linda about her influences as a photographer, and she responded with this:
“My early influences were many and include Paul Strand, W. Eugene Smith, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Dorothea Lange, Imogen Cunningham and later Diane Arbus. I have always been interested in metaphor and how the camera can convey emotion.
I also have tremendous respect for the authentic work and voices of Emmet Gowin, Sally Mann and Josef Sudek who gave us intimate views of their lives, forever changing the world of photography for me. My work has always been an extension of myself but their work allowed me to unselfconsciously find inspiration from home, looking for answers to the larger philosophical themes of life. There was a time when I believed you had to travel the world to be inspired. While working on these series, I wanted to document, not what is new to me, but what is a part of me. Over the years, I have discovered that it has as much to do with what you are feeling as it does with what you are seeing.”
I am so fascinated by Alma Haser's work! Her Within 15 Minutes body of work is really intriguing. This comes from her artist statement:
“Alma photographed sets of identical twins and made them into identical jigsaw puzzles. She then swaps every other piece of their puzzles, completely mixing them half and half. Not always knowing where their eyes, mouths and lips would end up, the result is a pair of eerie, unrecognizable portraits. No longer seen as completely identical, they are unique.”
The "I Always Have to Repeat Myself" body of work is even more interesting! (At least to me it is!)
Head over to Alma's website to see more of her work! You can also find her on Instagram!