Into the Deep :: Group Show
April 11, 2016
Into the Deep is a 6 week Master Course in Conceptual and Project Based Photography. Participants had to apply for one of the 20 spots in the course. The photographers who were accepted into this course had to be ready on several different levels. This course was a condensed version of a college course all mixed in with life ( families, jobs, kids, etc.. happening at the same time. ) There was a level of intensity inherent in the combination of this work alongside life happening. Each participant chose a personal topic to explore for the 6 weeks. Through the weekly course materials, videos, live Spreecasts, 1:1 mentoring and private supportive community inside Facebook each of these photographers developed an incredible new body of work. Each week I was deeply moved and inspired. Each facing their own internal dialogue all while continuing to produce the work that truly meant so much to them. As artists we all struggle with knowing that what we are doing is valuable. That it matters. It is so personal to put our work out there and to have it seen. It's a vulnerable and courageous thing. There is a LOT happening as we face the "blank canvas". It was my dream and vision to create a safe and yet still challenging container for those who I knew had such powerful stories to tell. What I witnessed was nothing short of extraordinary. As you'll see in the gallery below.
Esmee Aarbodem
I was a daydreaming child, reaching for the stars. Growing up was a wake up call. It’s difficult to dream with your eyes wide open. This series is about losing childhood dreams and where they go once you mature.They go to a place inside you. And there they stay forever.
We call them our essential self.
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Deborah Achak
WA T E R: FROM the SOUND + TO the SEA — A water study in 2 parts
FROM the SOUND: I composed this collection to study the abstractions that are created as the deep waters of Puget Sound interact with the power of the ferry boats that traverse from shore to shore every day. The beauty that unfolds as nature meets machine takes on a meditative quality. I hope to evoke the power + poetry of water and invite the viewer to create their own narrative around their feeling and memories of the sea.
TO the SEA: The images in this series are from the warm tropical waters of Maui. I compose my water images to create an illusion of stillness, weight, peace and intimacy with the world above and below the surface.
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Clarice Barbato-Dunn
The Spaciousness Project
Memories creep and cling like persistent vines. Which ones do we attempt to rip away, and which ones do we train to grow all throughout our being?
This project, yet to reach completion, is an ongoing exploration of finding physical and emotional space in my life.
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Susan Behnke
Gauguin’s questions,”Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” are the inspiration for a personal investigation of my journey out of a painful parental disaster into exploring the open space of what is possible, into being free at last. What now?
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Angie Byers
This work is about the shrouds of internal mystery that happen with the adding and removing of masks. The wearing of masks as a form of personal protection from fear, hiding, people pleasing, and being (or pretending to be) who others want me to be, instead of being myself. The powerful feeling of being in control by adding them based on the circles that I am flowing in at any given moment. By beginning to strip them away, I am seeing how many that I am wearing as protection from the fears of exposure, shame, embarrassment, and abandonment. All hidden within the darkness along with the past scars from many painful experiences, safely buried beneath the layers.
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Jen H. Doolittle
This project is about taking the time to slow to really see what’s in front of me, to find the meaning in our mess. If I’m bogged down by what should or could be, I can’t appreciate what is. What started as a way to lovingly document my family’s life has evolved into a journey of self-discovery. Through these photos I am letting go of the past and giving voice to who I am today.
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Alicia Johnson
Smart girls don’t get married
Many years ago, a woman told me to “dumb it down”, so I could get a man. She said, smart girls don’t get married. I refused to believe that. Now, as I plan my own wedding and begin to build my marriage I know she was wrong. I know that girls, and the women they grow into, must embrace who they are in order to be healthy partners.
This project is not a defiant response, nor is it a pleading one. It is simply an acknowledgment of something a woman once said to me and a current documentation of how a smart girl loves.
Catherine Kiwala
It’s an ongoing urban call-and-response: A tagger makes his mark on a wall. The property owner scrambles to cover it up. Whether due to accumulated grime, haste, carelessness, or any combination of those, oftentimes the coverup paint doesn’t match. Sometimes more graffiti tags appear on top of the patches, starting the cycle all over again, layers and layers of expression and erasure.
I explore the push and pull of this unspoken conversation through my camera lens. I’m most interested in odd shapes, bright colors, and different textures; I see my photos as a way of documenting and giving voice to an ephemeral struggle whose appearance changes day by day. I don’t categorically side with one faction or the other. Rather, I aim to provoke thought about why we silence some forms of expression, whether that suppression is indeed better or more beautiful than the expression, and the metaphors this work suggests.
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Jennifer Magee
Thin Spaces can be defined as places where the boundaries between Heaven and Earth collapse, traditionally holy or sacred ground. These spaces have an intensity that is difficult to express but acknowledge the collective longing to capture a glimpse of divinity. Imbued with the power to transcend, transform and inspire. Commonly otherworldly in nature, often experiencing one causes a spine tingling sensation, spellbound, tears and the knowledge that we are part of a greater whole. It is my belief that thin places can be found in every day experiences if an individual is open to receiving them. The scenes that I photograph are my attempt to document the divine in everyday life and the obstacles that prevent transcending the boundaries. Images express what language lacks the power to convey
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Sheree Angela Matthews
*I must also have a dark side if I am to be whole * - Carl Jung.
This body of work is, an exploration into what Carl Jung called the Shadow Self. In opposition to the Persona, that is the social mask we wear to fit in with our society, the Shadow Self is composed of all our repressed instincts, weaknesses, desires and fears. Those parts of ourselves we choose to conceal, to hide in order to be accepted. Through self-portraiture, I’ve been navigating a way to marry my Shadow Self with my lighter self, becoming my authentic self in the process.
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Nicole Montez
This project is a study in hesitation. Those moments of holding one's breath before diving deep. There is a loneliness that occurs when you ignore intuition. I think it's a common struggle to know we are stardust and embers, and yet deny ourselves the very things that will light us up, afraid of our staggering brilliance. These photos explore that moment just before implosion.
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Jess Ray
Unconditional: without conditions or limitations
This body of work is an ongoing journey, delving into the canine-human bond and relationship. I am documenting not only my own relationships but also those of others and their canine companions. I feel no judgement in the canine gaze, only unconditional love. Do you feel it too?
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Natasha Reilly
Living in a society that likes to tell us how we should live, I have found that many end up hiding their unique magic for fear of not "fitting in”. Yet, I believe the very things we hide are love letters from our soul. This series is a beginning exploration of the courage and tenderness it takes to step forward from those dark, uncertain spaces in order to freely love, share and celebrate being exactly who you are in this life.
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Jennifer Bronwyn Simons
DARK WATER: A CONVERSATION OUT OF TIME
Particle physics has recently proven what the mystics and mediums among us have always known: that time is multi-directional, and that the present can change the past. These photographs document a conversation that is occurring outside the conventional bounds of time.
The series is the result of a creative collaboration with my father, the poet John Thompson, who died in 1976.
These photos are not a narrative of grief or a personal catharsis. They are about a relationship, a resonance, an ongoing conversation, they are a call and response between daughter and father.
The images here are mine, the words are couplets from the ghazals in my father John Thompson's last book, "Stilt Jack".
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Catherine Yakovlev
My photo project is about immortalising feelings from women who have survived cancer.This introspective series captures the different emotions that cross my subjects heart and spirit. These women are from different backgrounds. They might be young, old, and at different stages of their cancer journey; some have just finished treatment and for others, treatment finished some years ago.
