Ellen Garvens: Prosthesis

Ellen Garvens—Prosthesis
January 14–March 5, 2009
Gallery Reception: January 29, 2009, 5–7pm

Light Work is pleased to announce its upcoming spring exhibition, Prosthesis, featuring the work of Ellen Garvens. We invite you to schedule tours and gallery talks, attend our gallery receptions, and visit any time to see the exhibitions. In Prosthesis, Ellen Garvens’ photographs and sculptures intersect and magnify each other as they reference the ever-present, formidable, and magnificent frailty of the human body. This exhibition unites photographs from Garvens’ Ambivalence series with photo-based sculptures from herConstructions series.

Garvens began creating the images from the Ambivalence series, which documents the manufacture of prosthetics, at around the same time the war in Iraq started. The prosthetics depicted in these straightforward and elegant photographs serve as reminders of the consequence of conflict and the ephemeral nature of humans who carry out that conflict. According to Mary Goodwin, assistant director at Light Work, “The Ambivalence photographs draw the contour of an exquisite interior armature, a system of support for the body that becomes visible, in this case, through the act of its replacement. Like a photograph, a prosthesis echoes the shape of what once was; its shape derives from an antecedent no longer present, signifying not only the passage of time but also the ephemeral nature and delicacy of the human form.”

The photo-based sculptures from Garvens’ body of work titled Constructions combine images of the body within delicate metal framings. In this series, hand tools, some from everyday life, such as scissors and pliers, and some, including probes and tooth extractors, more directly related to the maintenance of the body, integrate with images of hands and other overtly organic forms. Much as prosthetic devices contain the memory of the body, the hand-tools and metal framings of this series give form to the photographs within them. The Constructions bring the themes of the body and the revelation of its armature into three dimensions.

Garvens received a BS in Art from the University of Wisconsin, and both an MA and MFA from the University of New Mexico. Her work has been exhibited nationwide, including at such venues as Solomon Fine Art in Seattle, WA; Jayne H. Baum Gallery in New York, NY; Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art in Cleveland, OH; Fotofest International in Houston, TX; and Dolby Chadwick Gallery in San Francisco, CA, among others. She has received numerous grants, awards, and fellowships, including a Royalty Research Fund Grant and an Artist Trust Fellowship from the Washington State Arts Commission, among others. Her work is included in permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, NY; Houston Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX; Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, OH; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.

Also on view at this time is the Transmedia Photography Annual featuring the work of students in Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. Gallery hours for these exhibitions are Sunday to Friday, 10am–6pm, and by appointment. To schedule an appointment, please call 315-443-1300. Both the exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. Paid parking is available in the Marion Parking Lot and Booth Garage.

Light Work invites groups and individuals to schedule tours and gallery talks of the exhibition and facility. Light Work is a non-profit, artist-run organization dedicated to the support of artists working in photography and electronic media. Light Work is a member of CMAC, the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at Syracuse University.

For more information about any of these exhibitions, please contact Jessica Heckman at Light Work, 315-443-1300 or jhheckma@syr.edu.

**Digital press images and image information from this exhibition are available upon request.

Angie Buckley, Pedro Isztin, Cyrus Karimipour, and Paula Luttringer

Tracing Memory: Photographs by Angie Buckley, Pedro Isztin, Cyrus Karimipour, and Paula Luttringer
Guest curated by Miriam Romais
November 3–December 31, 2008
Gallery Reception: Thursday, November 13, 2008. 5–8:00pm

Light Work is pleased to announce our upcoming exhibition, Tracing Memory: Photographs by Angie Buckley, Pedro Isztin, Cyrus Karimipour, and Paula Luttringer, guest curated by Miriam Romais of En Foco.

Romais curated this exhibition explore what makes a thought become a memory. She states, “The most emotionally laden experiences persist, and those left untouched, most likely become a memory trace…fragile and ephemeral.” The artists chosen for this exhibition create photographs that look at the idea of remembrance—letting go and making sense of past events, and using those memories to understand who they are today.

Growing up with a mother from Thailand and a Caucasian American father, Angie Buckley did not know her family history for many years. She relied on the conflicting memories and stories of relatives to piece together her heritage. Her images are created with a pinhole camera and cutouts of old family photographs, resulting in work that lies somewhere in between the real world and imagination. Buckley received her BFA in Photography from Ohio University, and her MFA in Photography from Arizona State University. She has received various awards, and her work has been exhibited nationwide, including at the Southern Light Gallery in Texas, McDuffy Arts Center in Virginia, and New York University, among many others.

Pedro Isztin’s color portraits metaphorically integrate formative childhood memories, using them to heal the adult that child has become. Part of a larger series that emulates a life journey, Destino III: Transformation revisits, in Isztin’s words, the pain, joy and suffering that our psyches are stamped with, no matter how little or large those experiences as a child.” Isztin was born to a Colombian mother and Hungarian father, and his work explores his diverse heritage. He lives in Ottawa, Canada, and has exhibited internationally. He has received numerous awards and grants, including a Photography Project Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, and an Ontario Arts Council Award.

Unlike the other artists, Cyrus Karimipour revels in the flexibility of memories, and uses his images to visually recreate them to depict how he remembers an event or encounter. In his series Invented Memory, he creates scenarios by breaking down his negatives and rearranging the fragments to then be re-photographed. His imagery becomes ambiguous, as if looking in on someone else’s dream. Karimipour received his BA from Oakland University in Michigan, and his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. His work has been exhibited nationwide, including at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of New Art in Michigan, and the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio, among others. His work has also been published in Harper’s Magazine, and The Detroit News, among others.

Paula Luttringer faces her own traumatic past, infusing her imagery with what other women remember about being abducted and held captive during Argentina’s Dirty War. Lamento de Los Muros (The Wailing of the Walls)consists of large black-and-white images, which depict the interior of the detention centers where thousands of people were held, tortured and “disappeared”. The images capture both history and memory. Luttringer was awarded a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation in 2001. Her work appears in the collections of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and George Eastman House, Rochester, NY. She currently lives and works in Buenos Aires and Paris.

Miriam Romais is the executive director of En Foco, a non-profit organization dedicated to cultural diversity in photography. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. and abroad. Her work is part of the book, video, and HBO project titled Americanos: Latino Life in the United States (Little Brown & Co, 1999). She participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence program in 1996.

Also on view at this time is the 2008 Light Work Grants exhibition, featuring the work of photographers Kathy Morris and Paul Pearce, as well as art writer Nancy Keefe Rhodes’ research project on Syracuse photographer Marjorie Wilkins. Each year Light Work awards three grants to photographers, critics, or photo-historians who reside in Central New York. The Light Work Grants in Photography program, founded in 1973, is one of the longest-running photography fellowships in the United States.

Light Work will host a reception to celebrate these exhibitions on Thursday, November 13 from 5–8pm. Gallery hours are Sunday to Friday, 10am–6pm, and by appointment. To schedule an appointment, please call 315-443-1300. The exhibitions and reception are free and open to the public. Paid parking is available in the Marion Parking Lot and Booth Garage. Light Work invites groups and individuals to schedule tours and gallery talks of the exhibition and facility. Light Work is a nonprofit, artist-run organization dedicated to the support of artists working in photography and electronic media. Light Work is a member of CMAC, the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at Syracuse University. For more information about any of these exhibitions, please contact Jessica Heckman at Light Work, 315-443-1300 or jhheckma@syr.edu.

**Digital press images from all exhibitions are available upon request.

Ernesto Pujol: Walk #1

Ernesto Pujol—Walk #1
August 25-October 23, 2008
Gallery Reception: Friday, October 3, 2008. 5-8:30pm, with lecture from 7:00-8:30pm

Light Work is pleased to announce our upcoming exhibition, Walk #1, featuring the work of Ernesto Pujol.

The black-and-white digital images in this exhibition follow a figure clad in a black robe, Pujol himself, walking through a Civil War cemetery in South Carolina. The photographs are arranged in sequential order in the gallery, depicting a dialogue between the figure, nature, and architecture. According to René Paul Barilleaux, “A lush Southern landscape, ornate Victorian cast ironwork, carved marble statuary, and other picturesque elements appear as a counterpoint to the dark, nearly motionless walker.”

Pujol conceived this series as a combination between a performance (the walking) and installation. According to Pujol, he had avoided going to the cemetery for some time, but “When I first set foot in that city of the dead, I suddenly realized that it was the familiar environment I had dreamed about for years. I had experienced recurring dreams of marble arches and colonnades surrounded by gated gardens and water.” After beginning to photograph the area in a documentary style, he quickly realized that he needed to walk through the space in a performative way, which resulted in the photographs depicted in this exhibition.

In addition to the digital images, this exhibition also features the black robe worn in the photographs, displayed on a mannequin in the center of the gallery, as well as twelve small, framed, hand-blown glass plates hanging on the wall with the images. Each plate has a word painted on it, meant to evoke a personal or emotional response from the viewers in the gallery.

Pujol was born in Cuba and grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received his BA in humanities and painting from the Universidad de Puerto Rico, and his MFA in interdisciplinary art practice from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been exhibited internationally, and he has received numerous awards and fellowships. In addition, Pujol’s work is included in various permanent collections, including at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX; the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University; Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; among many others. He participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence program in 1999.

Also on view at this time is an exhibition titled Images of a Girl, Images of a Woman featuring the work of Rita Hammond. A nationally recognized artist and photographer, Hammond (1924-1999) was a dynamic and greatly admired presence in the Central New York art community. With audacity, intelligence, and humor, Hammond’s work reflected on major figures from the history of art and photography. Images of a Girl, Images of a Woman offers a body of photographs from Hammond’s long-time collaboration with Lynn Moser. The series juxtaposes images of Moser as a young girl in 1967 with images of her as a woman twenty years later, revealing the dramatic and intimate effects of time, reflected in both the subject and the perspective of the photographer. Freelance photographer, curator, and arts educator Gina Murtagh has worked with Light Work and Syracuse University Press to publish a book on this series of images. On September 8 at 6:00pm, Murtagh will present a lecture about Rita Hammond at Light Work in Watson Theater. Her book,Images of a Girl, Images of a Woman , will be available at the event for purchase. The book is also available through Syracuse University Press atwww.SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu. Hammond’s series A Due Voci is also on view at this time in the Community Darkrooms exhibition space.

Light Work will host a gallery reception to celebrate these exhibitions on Friday, October 3 from 5-8:30pm, with a lecture by Ernesto Pujol beginning at 7:00pm. This event is part of the Visible Memories Conference, which is presented by the Visual Arts and Cultures Cluster of The Central New York Humanities Corridor, made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Corridor is a large-scale partnership with Syracuse University, Cornell University, and the University of Rochester that connects scholarship in five other cluster areas: philosophy, linguistics, religions and cultures, musicology/music history, and humanities at the interface of science/technology. The conference will feature a screening by David Thorne, and plenary panels with noted scholars and artists including Patricia Zimmermann, George Legrady, Gregory Sholette, Phaedra Pezzullo, Cara Finnegan, and Andrea Hammer.   Pujol’s lecture is the keynote address for the conference, and the public is invited to attend the lecture and reception free of charge. For more conference information visit http://publicmemories.syr.edu.

Gallery hours are Sunday to Friday, 10am-6pm, and by appointment. To schedule an appointment, please call 315-443-1300. The exhibitions and reception are free and open to the public. Paid parking is available in the Marion Parking Lot and Booth Garage. Light Work invites groups and individuals to schedule tours and gallery talks of the exhibition and facility. Light Work is a nonprofit, artist-run organization dedicated to the support of artists working in photography and electronic media. Light Work is a member of CMAC, the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at Syracuse University. For more information about any of these exhibitions, please contact Jessica Heckman at Light Work, 315-443-1300 or jhheckma@syr.edu.

*Digital Files of all press images are available upon request.

Blake Fitch: Expectations of Adolescence

Blake Fitch — Expectations of Adolescence
April 1 – July 18, 2008
Gallery Reception: April 10, 2008, 5-8pm

Light Work is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition, Expectations of Adolescence, featuring the work of Blake Fitch.

The images in this exhibition follow the lives of Kate, Fitch’s youngest sister, and Julia, her cousin, as they have grown from adolescence to young adults. The 10-year project captures the physical and emotional changes in the two girls in celebration of youthful beauty.

According to Fitch, “I hope to have captured the simple moments in their search for their own identity as it becomes publicly displayed—at a dance recital or simply by the way they look at themselves in the mirror—and then subsequently informs the various traits that are either incorporated or discarded on their way to becoming an adult.”

While it can be said that all works of art are in some way autobiographical, this notion seems particularly true when the subject is the artist’s family. Fitch has been able to draw out an autobiographical aspect of photography by shooting candid and intimate images of her family. And through this, has found a way to look back at her own teenage years from an adult perspective.

Fitch received a BFA in Photography from Pratt Institute and an MS in Arts Administration from Boston University. She also participated in the MFA program in Photography from The School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR; Center for Contemporary Art in Adeline, TX; and The Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY; and Lepont Gallery in Aleppo, Syria. Her work is also featured in various permanent collections, including at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX; Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, MA; George Eastman House of Photography in Rochester, NY; Light Work; and Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA. She has received awards including sponsorships from Calumet and Kodak, a Society of Photographic Education Graduate Scholarship, and a Harper’s Bazaar National Talent Search Grand Prize. Her talents have further been recognized by Mamiya in Photo District News. She participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence program in 2006.

Also on view at this time is an exhibition titled Educating Artists: Photography Programs in Review. This exhibition Light Work will host a gallery reception to celebrate these exhibitions on Thursday, April 10 from 5-8pm. Gallery hours are Sunday to Friday, 10am-6pm, and by appointment. To schedule an appointment, please call 315-443-1300. The exhibitions and reception are free and open to the public. Paid parking is available in the Marion Parking Lot and Booth Garage.

Light Work invites groups and individuals to schedule tours and gallery talks of the exhibition and facility. Light Work is a nonprofit, artist-run organization dedicated to the support of artists working in photography and electronic media. Light Work is a member of CMAC, the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at Syracuse University. For more information about any of these exhibitions, please contact Jessica Heckman at Light Work, 315-443-1300 or jhheckma@syr.edu.

**Other press images from all exhibitions are available upon request.