Exhibition Details
Altered Images
Online Exhibition
February 21 – October 31, 2023
Virtual Reception and Artist Talks | April 11, 2023 at 5 PM via Zoom
Jurors Award: Forrest McGarvey
Jurors Honorable Mentions: Norman Aragones, Vale Yang
Directors Award: Jason Reblando
Directors Honorable Mentions: Cali Banks, John Bonath, Abbey Hepner
Selected Artists: Norman Aragones, Cali Banks, Linda Barsotti, Bonnie Blake, Spiro Bolos, John Bonath, Joshua Brinlee, Nancy Stalnaker Bundy, Dawnja Burris, Meliss Des, Richard Edic, Alexa Frangos, Regan Golden, Abbey Hepner, Brenna Hilgers, Hsing-Chia Hsieh, Steve Huth, Christine June, Valerie Kim, Wayne King, Heidi Kirkpatrick, Hannah Latham, Chantal Lesley, Holly Lynton, Forrest McGarvey, Cheryl Medow, Danielle Owensby, Valerie Pfaff, Audrey Powles, Jason Reblando, Parker Reinecker, Thibault Roland, Sara Rytteke, Patrick Samuels, Vera Sprunt, Karen Stentaford, Marta Wapiennik, Vinci Weng, Vale Yang, CC Young.
Theme
Since the beginning of photography, photographers and artists have been altering and modifying their images. We are in a time where the possibilities and methods available to create desired outcomes are boundless. We are looking for your creations that reflect your creativity and inspiration. This can include but is not limited to images altered by computer, drawing, darkroom, chemicals, collage, text, sculptural, or installation-based work.
Jurors Statement
From the moment photography was announced to the world, its first practitioners were already altering their images to suit particular messages, styles, and points of view. Many of the earliest manipulated photographs were attempts to compensate for the new medium's technical limitations: photographs were hand-colored to replicate the colors of the natural world, negatives were combined to create landscapes with both land and sky equally exposed, and large group portraits and tableaux included multiple captures to compensate for long exposure times. Yet, each of these manipulations necessitated artistry and a particular point of view. In the 1990s, the computer replaced manual darkroom techniques as the dominant means of altering photographs. Today's digital technology has revealed the endless malleability of the photographic image and opened new doors of artistic practice. The fracture, sampling, appropriation, and layering that define the field of digital media have also become fundamental concepts in photography.
The artists featured in this exhibition have embraced contemporary methods of image alteration in order to present a variety of viewpoints. Layering imagery, cultural commentary, and a wide variety of materials, these works of art explore themes of ancestry, nature, consumerism, and memory. In our digital age, image alteration is more relevant than ever, not only as a rich formal language, but also as a mode of contemporary expression. "To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist," noted famed writer Samuel Beckett.
-Lisa Volpe
Juror | Lisa Volpe
Lisa Volpe is the Associate Curator of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Before arriving in Houston, she was the Curator of the Wichita Art Museum, where she oversaw all areas of the museum’s collection. Additionally, she held various curatorial roles at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA), and fellowships at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the Cleveland Museum of Art.
