honorable mention
Colleen Fitzgerald united states
title
Stamina: Land & Sea (series)
The process engenders new approaches to conventional subjects in photography, such as landscapes and seascapes. Contortions in the actual film parallel shifts in perception, both physical and imaginative. Each of the images in the series simultaneously captures the subject and the act of looking itself. The folded, curved, cut, and overlapping sheets of film create an immediate awareness of the materiality of the photograph and remind the viewer they are not looking at the thing itself, but a deliberate construction of it from the perspective of the image-maker. The process reconstructs both reality and the very material that records reality. In doing so, the final product of the photographic works is not a direct representation of the world, but a negotiation of vision.
Colleen earned a Master of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts from Boston College. She delivers talks at institutions across the country and exhibits work internationally. The Society for Photographic Education, Filter Photo Festival, Pingyao Photography Festival, InVision Photography Festival, and much more have featured her work. She also enjoys curating exhibitions to champion the work of fellow artists.
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entry description
The series consists of images created by using the materials and tools of photography in non-traditional ways. Unexposed four-by-five-inch analog film is cut and molded into three-dimensional shapes and exposed inside a camera outfitted with a custom film holder that accepts the film as an object instead of as a standard, flat, two-dimensional sheet. The film-object can also be shaped and manipulated after exposure, before being re-photographed and printed. This unique process combines aspects of sculpture and photography, and, due to the optics involved, the results can appear stretched and distorted. The subjects pictured in this way seem as unusual as they are familiar.The process engenders new approaches to conventional subjects in photography, such as landscapes and seascapes. Contortions in the actual film parallel shifts in perception, both physical and imaginative. Each of the images in the series simultaneously captures the subject and the act of looking itself. The folded, curved, cut, and overlapping sheets of film create an immediate awareness of the materiality of the photograph and remind the viewer they are not looking at the thing itself, but a deliberate construction of it from the perspective of the image-maker. The process reconstructs both reality and the very material that records reality. In doing so, the final product of the photographic works is not a direct representation of the world, but a negotiation of vision.
about the photographer
Colleen Fitzgerald is a New England based visual artist and educator whose practice incorporates a combination of experimental and traditional photography. ArtsWorcester recently selected her as the annual recipient of The Present Tense Prize for artistic risk-taking, new practices, and excellence in execution. She was chosen as the 2016/17 Artist in Residence at the Noble and Greenough School and a visual arts resident at the Vermont Studio Center and Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She has taught for the University of New Hampshire, the University of Maryland University College, Memphis College of Art, Parsons School of Design Teaching Assistantship, and arts courses in Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.Colleen earned a Master of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts from Boston College. She delivers talks at institutions across the country and exhibits work internationally. The Society for Photographic Education, Filter Photo Festival, Pingyao Photography Festival, InVision Photography Festival, and much more have featured her work. She also enjoys curating exhibitions to champion the work of fellow artists.
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