ONLINE EXHIBITION
Annuale 12
This is The Light Factory’s 12th Juried Annuale, a photography competition that showcases challenging and inventive new work from photographers throughout the international photographic community. From traditional to digital, still and moving, all photographic techniques and approaches were welcome, and juror Julie Grahame chose five compelling artists from a wide range of talented applicants who submitted work.
SERIES
Second Skin
ARTIST STATEMENT
Second Skin takes away access to each model’s face and body to show the haunting reality of our emphasis on one’s outer shell. The feminine beauty ideal is a socially constructed belief that a woman’s appearance is her most important quality, which influences many women to strive to achieve an often-unobtainable visual perfection. Cosmetics can become a protective device, temporarily covering any self-perceived flaws, but cannot cure a dysmorphic perception of self that can lead to detrimental and destructive ends. The application of makeup in the morning and the removal at night is a daily ritual for many women. By collecting used makeup remover wipes from women, placing them back over the figure, and photographing them, these images embody this repetitive beauty ritual.
BIO
Ashley Moog Bowlsbey is an artist from York County, Pennsylvania. She received her BFA in photography from Pennsylvania College of Art & Design in 2012 and her MFA in photography from Indiana University Bloomington in 2017. She is currently an adjunct professor at York College of Pennsylvania. She specializes in both analog and digital photography, along with bookmaking processes.
SERIES
Wright Brothers-Then and Now
ARTIST STATEMENT
On a tranquil and slightly snowy day in February 2016, I decided to go see Huffman Prairie in Dayton, Ohio where the Wright Brothers perfected flight. Dayton is my hometown and yet I had never visited. Standing there on that cold and snowy day transformed me. I could feel the fluctuation of past and present. The seeds for this body of work were planted in my heart.
My series of photographs, Wright Brothers-Then and Now, is about the past mingling with the present. The Wright Brothers were accomplished photographers and used photography in their process of discovery. Through research, I found many historic images taken by the Wright Brothers and others whose locations I could still access. I began traveling to many of these locations and creating my own images. The locations include areas of Dayton, Kitty Hawk, NC, Washington, DC, Detroit, MI, and LeMans and Pau, France. I digitally combine my images with the historic photographs blurring the divisions between then and now to create visual fluctuations. I decided to add a personal narrative taken from writings of the time to this series of photographs. The narratives are as much about the people behind the history as they are responses to the places and events, making each image more vibrant and meaningful.
BIO
Dan Cleary is a professional photographer from Dayton, Ohio. He has a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Andy Johnston
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SERIES
The Contenders
ARTIST STATEMENT
“90% is seeing the picture. The rest is knowing when to push the button.”
I was fortunate to have an artist for a mother and an engineer for a father. I grew up being fascinated with faces, expressions, shapes, design and composition. I discovered photography about the time I realized that I couldn’t draw worth a darn. The first time I clicked the shutter started a lifelong pursuit of unique images that has only grown stronger through the years.
The images for The Contenders came from attending a Jiu-Jitsu competition with my son. As I watched, I became fascinated by the contenders’ faces. Even at the peak of the competition, when effort and strain were extreme, their faces still reflected individual personalities rising to the challenge. Panic, peace, anguish, contentment, concentration, sensuality – the expressions took on an almost classic look like Baroque paintings by artists like Caravaggio, Rubens and Rembrandt. That became my inspiration. Every image illuminates the contradiction of effort and emotion – the struggle and the preservation of self.
For me, photography isn’t about what the camera sees – it’s about what I see. Cameras are impersonal, they don’t have a point of view. My point of view is in the contrasts and contradictions. You shouldn’t have to search for the meaning. I always want people to know where to look when they view every picture.
My work isn’t autobiographical, it’s more like stream of consciousness or the world’s longest stand-up comedy routine.
SERIES
Trophies
ARTIST STATEMENT
I create portraits of live animals, uniquely captured so they appear as taxidermy heads. Caught in a moment of suspended animation, they express their own unique sense of personality.
BIO
Evan Kafka uses studio lighting and backdrops to create surreal yet relatable portraits of animals. Kafka has a background in commercial photography, primarily featuring humans, in ads on the subways and streets of New York City, and in portraits on more than 70 national magazine covers.
SERIES
Alterations
ARTIST STATEMENT
I was born on her birthday. My granny was the greatest love and loss of my childhood. My fondest memories were in the alterations department in which she worked, getting lost amongst the whir of machines, boxes of discarded buttons, and dressing rooms. It was a playground of sorts and my most vivid memories of a relationship that ended too soon.
Growing older I’ve discovered that I knew very little about her as a person, remembering only the love that was given. These photographs serve as metaphors for the way we alter, mend, and piece together memories, in order to make sense of what we have lost.
BIO
Heather Evans Smith’s work reflects her southern roots, motherhood, womanhood and a whimsical imagination she relied on as an only child in a rural town. She lives and works in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
