Altered Narratives | March 19- May 1, 2016

Charleston, SC – The City of Charleston Office of Cultural Affairs presents Altered Narratives at the City Gallery at Waterfront Park March 19 through May 1, 2016, featuring the works of 12 modern professional photographers from across the United States. The exhibition will open with a reception on Friday, March 18 from 5 to 7 p.m; the event is free and open to the public.

Altered Narratives: 19th Century Techniques Merge with 21st Century Visions explores how historical photographic methods are being used today by contemporary photographers. Deemed “alternative processes,” these techniques have grown in popularity in recent years as photographers seek out the satisfaction which comes from the hands-on approach of crafting a photograph from start to finish. In a world of digital technology that creates limitless and effortless photography, these artists – Christine Eadie, David N. Hyman, Diana Bloomfield, Doug Ethridge, Heidi Kirkpatrick, Karen A. Vournakis, Matt Larson, Maureen Delaney, Rebecca Sexton Larson, Sandy King, Bill Vaccaro, and Kenneth Jackson – choose to create their vision using antiquated methods, which bring a distinctive style to their art. Incorporating techniques such as tintype, palladium, gum bichromate, and ziatypes into their contemporary work not only involves skill and expertise, but also displays a rare talent for combining the new with the old.

About the Artists

Christine Eadie

A native of Sydney, Australia, Christine Eadie’s passion for painting and photography began at age 11. She studied painting at an art school for two years in Halkida, Greece, but is primarily a self-taught photographer. Christine later moved to the United States and worked as a commercial portrait, wedding and fashion photographer. Her artwork is based on the human figure and often exhibits elements of dark humor, symbolism, and the supernatural. The purpose of her work is to leave the viewer with a mix of conflicting feelings and thoughts about the fragility and instability of our superficially unquestionable reality. Favoring a hands-on approach, Christine prints her own black & white images in her home darkroom/studio. She embraced the 19th century wet-plate collodion process as her medium of choice in January, 2013 after attending an introductory workshop with Ellen Susan. Christine continued her education by studying John Coffer’s Doer’s guide and DVDs as well as other printed materials e.g. The Silver Sunbeam and Mark & France Osterman’s Basic Collodion Technique, etc. The high cost of start-up materials and chemicals prompted Christine to apply for a Lowcountry Quarterly Arts Grant in South Carolina, which she was awarded in March, 2013. In July, 2015 Christine was awarded an Artists’ Ventures Initiative Grant through the South Carolina Arts Commission. She currently resides in Charleston, SC.

David N. Hyman

David N. Hyman has been exhibiting photographic art since 1978. He has won numerous awards for his work. His platinum prints are in the permanent collections of the former Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. (now part of the National Gallery of Art), the Gregg Museum of Art and Design at North Carolina State University, and in many corporate and private collections. His photographs have been exhibited at shows in California, New York, North and South Carolina, and in China at the Pingyao International Photography Festival. Hyman specializes in landscapes, seascapes, still life and architectural details and has travelled extensively in Italy and other European countries.

Diana Bloomfield

Diana Bloomfield has been an exhibiting photographer for over thirty years. She has received numerous awards for her images, including a 1985 New Jersey State Visual Arts Fellowship, and five Regional Artist Grants from the United Arts Council of Raleigh, NC, most recently for 2015-16. She was a Critical Mass Finalist in 2014. Specializing in 19th century printing techniques, Diana’s images have been included in a number of books and journals. She is also a contributing writer for Don’t Take Pictures. Diana also works as an independent curator and has organized and curated several pinhole and alternative process exhibitions, including “Pure Light: Southern Pinhole Photography,” shown at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), in Winston-Salem, NC in 2004. And the exhibit,“Old is New Again: Alternative Processes,” which was originally shown at the Green Hill Center for NC Art, in Greensboro, NC, was invited for exhibition at the 2004 Pingyao International Photography Festival, in Pingyao, China. She was also an invited artist to the first Qinghai International Photography Festival, in Xining, China, where she exhibited in the summer of 2006. Her work is in a number of public and private collections, including the New Mexico History Museum, in Santa Fe, NM, and the Gregg Museum of North Carolina State University, in Raleigh, NC. A native North Carolinian, Diana currently lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she received her MA in English Literature and Creative Writing from North Carolina State University. Her work is represented by Tilt Gallery, located in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Doug Ethridge

Douglas Ethridge is a photographer and writer based in Seattle, Washington. His photography has been published by CameraArts, Hasselblad and B&W Magazine and shown in exhibitions in Bellingham, Carmel, Denver, Fort Collins, New York, Madrid, Portland, Santa Fe, Seattle and Tacoma. His work is owned by numerous private collectors throughout the U.S. “I am endlessly curious about anything and everything that crosses my path but I especially seek out locations and situations that are for the most part ambiguous with respect to time and place. My goal is to create images that motivate viewers to reach into their own imagination to complete the cycle of storytelling.”

Heidi Kirkpatrick

Heidi Kirkpatrick is a fine art photographer and educator based in Portland, Oregon. Throughout Kirkpatrick’s career her work has explored the female figure, family narratives and contemporary issues of being a woman. Heidi’s intent is to create works of art that are approachable in form and content, are interactive, yet fragile.

I try to demonstrate the strong voice of the feminine with my choices of materials and forms. The approach has taken on many shapes and sizes, but the message remains the same. These cyanotype works made in sunlight speak to family, history, love, and loss. With the exploration of this historical process, using family images and artifacts along with plants from my garden and everyday objects, I hope for the work to evoke memory and familiarity for the viewer.

She has exhibited widely over the last fifteen years and her work is held in numerous private and public collections including The Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; The Harry Ransom Center, Austin, Texas; Springfield Museum of Art, Ohio; The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, Louisiana; OHSU Corporate Collection, Portland, Oregon. Heidi was also selected for the Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 and was awarded the solo show award in 2012. Heidi’s work was also selected for LensCulture Emerging Talent Awards Top 50 in 2014.

Karen Vournakis

Karen Vournakis works out of her studio/gallery located in the heart of Charleston’s historic district. She specializes in hand painted photography and mixed media art. By painstakingly hand coloring archival processed original gelatin silver prints, the artist transcend time and space by imposing the power of memory through the use of color and a classical design sensibility in her photographic images. With an avid interest in history, architecture and archaeology, she shoots her photographs in the environs of Charleston, South Carolina, Europe (Greece and Italy) and the Middle-East. She then re-interpets the original images in her studio by adding mixed media tint and color (photo oils, colored pencils and high quality art crayons) directly on the black and white print, to create a finished image which is a blend of photography and painting. All work is done by the artist in her Charleston studio and darkroom, including the processing of the film and the archival processing of fiber-base papers. Her large scale 30″x30″ prints are truly painterly in impact: her small pieces are jewel-like. Regardless of size each hand painted print is a unique work of art.

Vournakis received a BFA in 1976 and an MFA Magna Cum Lauda from Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts in 1978 and a BA from Albion College, Albion, Michigan in 1966. She has taught photography at Syracuse University, Colgate University and Dartmouth College.

Her work is represented in the public collections of the Bibliotheque National, Paris, France; the Griffin Museum of Photography ( Boston), the Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY; the Erie Museum, Erie PA; the Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton NY and in private collections of Kidder Peabody & Co. Inc NY; Atlantic Mutural Co., Madison NJ, Fidelity Management & Research, Boston & London, The Bank of Woodstock, Woodstock VT, the Preserve @ Indigo Run ( Hilton Head) and the Roper Hospital.

Matt Larson

Matt Larson is co-founder of Boxfotos Airstream. He enjoys traveling with his wife to work, teach and exhibit photographic works out of their 23-foot, International Flying Cloud Airstream. The art couple is quickly creating a brand and national following as artists changing the traditional business model by “going mobile.” Boxfotos Airstream has been referred to as “Monsters of Mobile Art,” “Creative on Wheels” and “Art in a Box” by local and international media outlets and publications. Larson’s toy camera works are in the permanent collections of the Tampa Museum of Art, the Polk Museum of Art and numerous corporate collections.

Maureen Delaney

Maureen Delaney is an artist and educator living in Portland, Oregon. Her specialty within the field of photography is in alternative and experimental processes, as she loves to get her hands dirty during the creative process. A current theme running throughout Maureen’s work is her interest in nature and the human connection to our landscape. The tactility of working with alternative techniques supports the deep connection she feels with nature. Maureen received her BA in Psychology from Brown University and later attended the Academy of Art University earning an MFA in Photography, summa cum laude. After teaching coursework onsite in San Francisco at two local colleges Maureen moved with her family to Portland. She currently teaches online alternative process classes in the undergraduate and graduate programs at The Academy of Art University. Her patient and nurturing approach to teaching fosters a safe and creative learning environment for students of all age levels and abilities. Maureen has exhibited her fine art work coast to coast, ranging from New York to San Francisco and beyond.

Rebecca Sexton Larson

Rebecca Sexton Larson is a Tampa based studio artist working with historic photographic processes. She graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in Fine Arts and Mass Communications. She was awarded Florida Individual Artist Fellowships in 1998, 2002, and 2008. In 2006, she received an Artist Enhancement Grant from the State of Florida and, in 2005, was commissioned by the City of Tampa to be its Photographer Laureate for a year. Sexton Larson has taught, curated, lectured and exhibited work nationally at various art institutions and organizations. Her photographs are in numerous major collections throughout the country, including: Polaroid, Progressive Corporate Art, Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts, Poik Museum of Art, Tampa Museum of Art and New Mexico Historical Museum.

Sandy King

Sandy King is a photo historian and photographer of the landscape. He works in a beautiful and rare 19th century printing process called carbon transfer, molding a printing process of the early days of photography with contemporary tools of the digital age to create a unique vision of reality. As a fine art photographer Sandy has found, as have others, that making a photograph by hand is a fascinating adventure in which one has maximum control over the printmaking syntax, which determine the final, tangible qualities of the photograph as object, including its color, texture, tonal scale and reflective qualities.

Sandy’s work has been exhibited in Canada, China, Mexico and Turkey as well as the US, and has been published widely in magazines, including Photovision, Silvershotz and View Camera. He has also written and published on both the history of photography and on alternative printmaking, in cluding a recent book in China, Handcrafted: The Art and Practice of the Handmade Print, Zhejiang Photographic Publishing Company, Hangzhou, 1st edition 2014, 2nd edition with English appendices, 2015.

Sandy has a Ph.D. in Spanish Language and Literature and taught at Clemson University until retirement in 2006. He currently lives in Easley, South Carolina.”

Kenneth Jackson

Kenneth Jackson is a photographic artist who is largely self-educated in the craft, esthetics, and history of the medium. His subjects range widely and include natural and human environments, still life, portraits, and the nude – often quiet, poetic and even numinous visual meditations, and he often uses alternative photographic processes to create work in unique prints and small-editions. In recent years his work has begun to gain wider recognition and has been exhibited around the US and overseas. Jackson lives on a wooded hilltop in rural Chatham County, North Carolina.

Bill Vaccaro

Bill Vaccaro is a fine art photographer who works in processes ranging from the 19th century to the present. His photographic interests range from studies on the way people express their faith and religion (Jesus Is On The Mainline), architecture (Gateway), personal loss (The Things She Left Behind), ghostly landscapes (The Magic Hedge) to a borderline obsession with fireworks (Boomtown).

His photographs has been exhibited internationally in such venues as the Lishui (China) International Photography Festival; the Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins CO; the Dishman Art Center, Beaumont TX; the Houston Center for Photography, Houston TX, Lightbox Gallery, Astoria OR, the Martin Museum of Art at Baylor University, Waco TX; RayKo Photo Center, San Francisco CA; Soho Photo Gallery, New York NY, and wallspace gallery, Santa Barbara CA. His work has appeared in B&W Magazine, The Economist, SHOTS, Light Leaks, F-STOP, BLUR, as well as National Public Radio’s Look At This Story (formerly the Picture Show) blog.