Anna Norton

Artist Biography
Anna Norton received her M.F.A. in photography from Tyler School of Art and her B.A. in anthropology from Tulane University. After beginning her career in archaeology, she attended the Maine Photographic Workshops six-month Resident Program to focus on her interest in photography. Currently she teaches as part-time professor at Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, where she works as black and white, color and digital lab technician as well. She also is the Assistant Visual Resources Curator at Tyler School of Art. She exhibits in group and solo exhibitions both regionally and nationally. These include About Love at Nailya Alexander Gallery in New York and a solo exhibition at Off-White Walls at Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. A selection of Norton’s work will be published in Elements of Photography by Angela L. Faris-Belt in 2008. While continuing her still photography, she is additionally working on a series of videos called Living Space to be installed this coming spring at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.

Artist Statement
As a child I used to explore the wooded area around our house. Usually I could find something of note, something that I had never come across before, or something that had changed since my last excursion. Often I was drawn to the creek, but one particular day I remember.

It must have been hot, probably summer, likely midday. These are things that I don’t remember, and can only reason. What I do remember is the ground immediately surrounding the place I stood, the water running across it following the path of the water that went before, and continuing. The water must have felt cool on my feet. I can imagine that feeling, especially today in the heat and still air of my house. I can reason the heat of the air, so then the coolness of the water, but I can still see that water. On another day, I might not be so apt to imagine the liquid relief and its soothing brush against me, and I might not care whether it was a summer day or perhaps early in autumn. Every time that memory comes back to me, though, I see the water. I see the light reflected back from surface breaks of shallow pebbles. Rocks, sand, water and light all came together in layers of texture where I happened to stand and notice, but that’s not really important. What is important is that I happened to stand there, not in that place, but in any place, and notice.

The creek that ran through my childhood backyard isn’t on a map, nor does it even have a local name. These days it hardly ever even appears; it has almost entirely dried up. After a substantial rain it will occasionally spring to life again, as if retracing its steps. For many years when I would return home to visit, I would wander down to the creek again, retracing my own steps, hoping to find something that would catch my eye, pretending that it would be by chance. Now, the line of the creek bed that once brought new water only marks the boundary of the back yard, and life moves more quickly, so I do not wander down there anymore.

Still, not too far from my home now is a creek.
http://www.annagnorton.com/

Bea Geller

Artist Statement
Domestic Hearts 2 represents a small facet of my photographic work. The piece is from an exhibit entitled Color and Form. What I enjoy as an artist is the integrative aspect of the arts where work is not in a separate category of a particular discipline.I have become interested in actual shapes to convey photographic content. I find I am moving away from the convention of singular photographic image, and the rectangular frame. This image is representative of my intial experiments in the integration of photographc, sculptural and painterly forms.Content is explored in both symbolic juxtaposition of imagery within the forms as well as in the more traditional narrative.

Steven Rubin

Artist Statement
The modern zoo, on first glance, appears as a harmonious locale of mutual benefit for animals and humans alike. Zoo animals are clearly provided for – their natural predators no longer a concern, their daily imperative to find food always satisfied, their species’ survival protected in new naturalistic displays that replace the egregiously cruel cages of yesteryear. Humans get enormous benefit as well – families are entertained, children see the prototypes for their stuffed animals, researchers advance their knowledge and hosting cities get to boost their civic pride and revenue. Seems like a win-win until you recall just who designed the place and who holds the keys. As much as zoos are about admiring and preserving the animal kingdom they are also less overtly about keeping it under human dominion.

This body of work examines the zoo as a complex meeting ground where animal needs and the human desire for spectacle and control meet, mingle and conflict. Through a series of photographs of human and animal interaction at the San Diego Zoo, this visual essay (from which this single image is selected) playfully explores larger issues and conflicting attitudes toward nature and its man-made destruction and simultaneous reconstruction in the zoo. In essence, the work constitutes a visual form of anthrozoology – the study of human and animal relations – in a meeting place where conflict runs wild.

Bio
Steven Rubin has photographed on assignment in Iraq, Rwanda, Kosovo, Pakistan, Turkey, Chile and Cuba, and throughout the United States. His images have been published in The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, Mother Jones and The Village Voice, and internationally in The London Independent Magazine, Stern, GEO, Focus and L’Express, among numerous other venues. His pictures have also appeared in the publications of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The Ford Foundation, the Soros Foundation and the Southern Poverty Law Center. He is the recipient of the Leica Medal of Excellence, a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship, a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard and an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship. He was a Media Fellow with the Open Society Institute – New York, and a Community Fellow with the Open Society Institute – Baltimore, where he founded and directed the innovative program Healing Images, which provides digital cameras, instruction and therapy to survivors of torture.

A graduate of Reed College, he is presently finishing his MFA at the University of California, San Diego. He will be an Assistant Professor of Photography at Penn State University beginning in January 2008.

Timothy Bryan Ghiloni

Subway Sleepers
Subway Sleepers began as other groups of images have in the past; with simple observation. I would ride the train to and from wherever it was I had to go, and I watched the others that did so as well. I became fascinated with those who allowed themselves to fall asleep in the subway system. The act of sleeping itself is an intimately peaceful act being committed against an insecure and turbulent backdrop. It is an act of comfort, an act of surrender, and an act of trust. It is an act most commonly practiced behind locked doors. I began to take a visual note of their similarities and their difference. I found that a person’s expression or posture could tell me the story of their day and perhaps even their life. Some of the photographs are highly intimate portraits citing expression and vibration, others are contextual in nature and give the viewer details of the venue. I fell into a love affair with the Subway Sleepers and photographed them extensively over the next two years. Indeed, I was fixated on this act, preformed for all to see on the subway’s stage and soon I had an ensemble of images that covered a greater cross section of the quiescently commuting New Yorker. Overall concepts began to formulate such as unity and equality. The act of sleep symbolizing a common thread we all share, linking us all as one body of people. Yet, I knew that there was a greater personal meaning to this exploration. I took a step back from the shooting process to study the images and seek out feedback. In time I came to realize that by photographing the somnolent, I am essentially comparing the myself to the sleeper and ultimately coming to identify and relate to my recessed subjects. The images become less about who they are, and more about who we are. We tour here and there, day to day and pay check to pay check, in order to maintain some meager level of existence in this city that ironically never sleeps. We are all New Yorkers in our sleep. We are all Americans in our sleep. We are all people, in our sleep. We toil and travel, taking what refuge we can during our commute through life. The activity of sleeping on the subway becomes synonymous with struggle. The working poor, making use of an unfit environment to gain a moments rest. Through these images, I am dealing with my own issues of financial security, how society defines success, and the role that money plays in that definition. I am coming to terms with my economic status and place in life. Suffice to say that I am afraid of never reaching that monetized comfort zone, afraid of never waking up from this pecuniary repose, afraid of never getting off of the subway.


Timothy Bryan Ghiloni was born and raised in Newark, Ohio, just outside of Columbus. He graduated from Lakewood High School in 1994, showing great artistic promise and ambition. After high school, Bryan began college at Columbus State where he studied Graphic Communications for a year and a half. Discouraged by the lack of creativity involved in this field of study, he transferred schools. In 1998 he began attending the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia, where he found his calling as a photographer. Bryan graduated in 2002 with dual B.F.A.s in Photography and Graphic Design, achieving honors in each. After graduation he moved to New York City where he freelanced out of his own studio and worked with some of the most influential photographers in the medium such as Joyce Tenneson and Arnold Newman.

Over the course of Bryan's young career as an artist, he has shown in over 30 exhibitions including 6 solo shows and 3 New York City exhibitions. Timothy Bryan Ghiloni is also heavily involved with his artist collective, the Stillmoreroots Group. Recently the group has relocated to Swainsboro, Georgia where they are working with numerous community and arts organizations in order to build community and economy through art-related programming. The most recent derivative of this initiative is Gallery RFD, a non-profit art gallery that Bryan codirects with fellow Stillmoreroots member Anthony Faris. Bryan and Anthony will also be exhibiting together in a joint show in October at Augusta State University

Lindsey Wollard

BIO
Lindsey Wollard has been interested in art all her life. As a child, she sacrificed Saturday morning cartoons for art lessons at the local Art League. She excelled in art classes all through her school years and when it came to choosing a major in college, the decision was not a hard one. After completing her first year of college at Florida State University, she moved back to her hometown of Ft. Myers, FL and attended the nearby Florida Gulf Coast University where she graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelors Degree in Art in 2005. FGCU was also host to many of her first exhibitions, including her first solo exhibition. She has also exhibited at Space 39 and the Arts for ACT Gallery both located in Ft. Myers, FL, and the Art League of Bonita Springs in Bonita Springs, FL where she was awarded 3rd Place. Wollard also earned the Art House Foundation Award in 2004 and a credited photo of her work was featured in Southwest Florida Happenings Magazine in July of 2007. She currently lives in Ft. Myers, FL, where she works at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery.

ARTIST STATEMENT
I think some of the most interesting photographs are of fleeting moments, like this one. They can not be staged or even recreated. These kinds of occurrences happen all the time, but it is only when a camera is present that there is ever any documentation of the event. It’s all about the lucky circumstance of being at the right place at the right time, camera in hand.

James Wendell

James Wendell was born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia. He became interested in photography at the age of 12 after finding his dad’s Polaroid Landcamera stuffed in the back of a closet. He graduated the New England School of Photography at 20 in 1998 and won 1^st place in an A.S.M.P. competition in 1999. He has shown work in Massachusetts, Florida and New York City. His work was recently published in JPG Magazine. He enjoys his own brand of wit and wisdom and is working on finding the 13^th use of dragons blood. He currently works at Magnum Photos and lives in Brooklyn, NY.
www.jameswendell.com

David Teng Olsen

Artist Statement
My name is David Teng Olsen and I am currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wellesley College. I am originally from Seattle, WA. I received my Bachelors of Fine Arts at the University of Washington and my MFA from University of Wisconsin – Madison. Before I entered graduate school I had the fortunate experience of studying in Rome and Taipei. As an undergraduate I spent over 5 years studying Bioengineering, which has a large influence on my artwork. During my time as a Bioengineer I illustrated and designed a Bioengineering text book that is now the required text for Bioengineering classes at Stanford, Berkley and UC Davis to include a few.

The world of science intrigued me very much but I was disenchanted by the compartmentalization of the field and how little there was in the way of freedom to choose the ideas that I wanted to explore. Instead, most of the research went toward developments dictated by modern culture such as obesity, and sexual prowess; subjects I was not necessarily excited to research. I came to the conclusion that Art would be a better venue to thoroughly explore the science that intrigued me and bring it into a different light. As a scientific illustrator I was fascinated with the idea that the concepts I was illustrating had never been described before as visual objects. Rather, they only existed conceptually as mathematical formulas and theory. Because of the unique position I was in, the ability to understand the concepts being conveyed and interpreting them as visual objects, I found a vast fountain of inspiration and knowledge from which I could create both paintings and sculptures. From simple two and three dimensional forms, using a contemporary vernacular, I had the ability to describe these complex theories, believed by many to be the mechanisms of life, into easily to distinguished characters and forms that create environments which anyone can explore and see clearly; a diagram that describes many functions of the internal microscopic world that exist in every complex living creature.

My goal is to continue to explore these relationships between science and art. I imagine creating many more of these visual environments that investigate and evolve from scientific and visual research. From these installations, I want a dialogue to occur between the fields of Science and Art, where today there is little to none. Both fields could only benefit from one another.

Visit David’s website www.siamesebirds.com

Peter Chamberlain

Statement
My initial experiments with analog and digital imaging explored the possibilities of using unlikely combines of capture and modulation devices. I considered any prints that evolved as little more than documentation of the processes employed. It wasn’t until I tried to prove to a friend and colleague who was a traditional printmaker that digital prints could also have the rich textural quality of intaglio or litho that I began to take the “print” seriously.

On the other hand, the piece shown here is admittedly plain old fun. I have a younger girlfriend and a friend with a younger wife told me I should shave my ear hairs because “younger woman don’t like that”. My reaction was to let the hairs grow and photograph and scan my ears in ways way that accentuated the hairs as well as the grey hairs on my head. Currently I am doing a series on my bald spot. Aging…fashion…taboos…and satire.

Bio
Peter Chamberlain received an MFA in metals from SUNY New Paltz, an MA in sound-sculpture from SUNY Albany, and a Post Graduate Certificate in installation and performance from the Vancouver College of Art (now ECIAD) in Vancouver, BC, Canada. He has been teaching some form of electronic arts full time since 1977. He taught sculpture, electronic arts, and contemporary art history/criticism at Elmira College in NY for 15 years. In 1991 he moved to Oahu to design and implement Electronic Arts courses at the University of Hawaii at Manoa where he continues that quest.

He has exhibited or performed intermedia work throughout the continental US, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, in Mexico City, in Essen and Munich, W.Germany, Melbourne, AUS, and in Hawai'i. He has lectured on this work in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, continental US, and Hawai'i.

Since 2001, while continuing his sculptural experiments, he has shifted his focus to working with Mokaki, a group of “rapidly aging activist poets, artists, and musicians” who record weekly and perform at special interest activist venues on Oahu. He maintains multiple roles as keyboardist, technical director for performances, recording engineer and keeper of the studio, and also designs and constructs sculptural instruments and amplification devices that serve as functional stage props for performances.

Recently he has also been exploring various modes of digital image manipulation and printing and participating in online exhibitions.

Site: peterchamberlain.net

Elizabeth Williams

I feel regrets nearly every night I close my eyes and before I feel doubts and all of the little circles the viewer sees stands for different depths of agnotism i tend to go through. I needed a way to convey this to my audience.With luck I hope I have.

I first picked up photography and digital imaging in 2002 and I'm still learning things I have never imagined possible.I am a woman of few words so the use of art is my medium of expression . Please feel free to view my journey as it goes along @ http://elizabeth.mosaicglobe.com/. I am starting up a new project which includes making prints of my work as well as working as a freelance artist. 25% of all proceeds will be donated to the Alzheimer's Foundation of America along with Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Colleen Ellis

Time | Place Series
In this ongoing series of photo grids, the intent is to visually explore temporal moments in time, place and space. Some grids depict an hour in time and space, others represent a day, while some occur over many days. They are about moving—traveling—it is the seeing for the first time that awakens the sense of being. By focusing on distant images in nature, one may begin to clarify, process, or reflect on what is close. They are, in ways, inspired by the work of photographer Atta Kim, the writings of philosopher’s Joseph Campbell and Martin Heidegger.

As an artist interested in both modernist and postmodernist discourse, these photo grids provide a sense of order to an otherwise chaotic, information-dominant culture. Having spent many years creating graphic visual identity for marketers, an acute sense of awareness to the affects of these visual messages has emerged. These photo grids provide an alternative time and place to the vastness and omnipotence of these visual messages, providing a vehicle to transcend what Fredric Jameson calls the “simulacra.”

Further the digital camera is used as an appendage to the body, illustrating a vantage point disconnected to the eye, shifting the viewer’s perspective. As I move through time and space the camera is pointed outward, away from the body, toward a particular landscape or skyscape, cap- turing its particular image of time and space. By disconnecting the camera from my eye, I am free to focus on the moment, on what I am seeing and experiencing. When working on the Time | Place Series, I am brought to a place of reflection, contemplation, and transcendence of the here and now.

To see more, visit Colleen’s website: colleenellis.us