UnBound13! Artist Features: IV
UNBOUND13!
July 5 – August 3
Join us for a breakdown of our annual juried + invitational photography exhibition. Throughout the exhibition, we’ll share information about our artists and the processes behind their featured pieces.
SUPPORT THE EXHIBITION:
UnBound! is our “non-profit” play we make once a year, raising money which directly supports artists in the exhibition. Works in the show are available for purchase (like a normal exhibition), but friends can also give to the UnBound! Fund, which will be used by the gallery to acquire select works for the growing Candela Collection. One day, this collection will be donated to the permanent collection of a notable arts institution.
This exhibition supports photographers through exposure, but most importantly through collecting. If you purchase a piece, you are directly supporting that artist and adding to your personal collection; if you give to the UnBound! Fund, you are allowing an artist to be acquired for a permanent collection. No matter what, your funds support an UnBound13! artist.
BARBARA CIUREJ & LINDSAY LOCHMAN | CHICAGO, IL/WAUWATOSA, WI
History of Art, 2024.
Photo Book,
11 x 9 inches x 24 pages.
Edition of 100.
We created these images in 1979-80 in response to the then prevailing art historical canon — the hierarchy of exclusively European male artists. The most widely used art survey book, the 1969 edition of History of Art by H.W. Janson, excluded all women artists, with the exception of one anonymous Greek vase painter. Only in 1987 were a scant number of significant women artists included in the revised editions.
Our images of domestic apotheosis critiqued the assumption of women’s roles as passive objects of inspiration, rather than as potent forces with agency and responsibility. We proposed that the subjects of the most familiar works of art had their own agendas.
By locating power within the domestic domain, we provided a more plausible context for the absence of women artists in the canon. Ongoing political and cultural friction prompted the reiteration of this work in 2024 in book form—History of Art by B. Ciurej and L. Lochman.
Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochman collaborate on photographic projects that address the confluence of history, myth and popular culture. Their subject matter spans their gendered experience from adolescence to aging and expands into commentary on the social landscape. They employ staged photography, studio constructions, documentary, alternative processes and artists’ books in their practice.
Their work has been exhibited in the US and internationally and is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, H2Contempory Museum/Germany, Milwaukee Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro/Brazil, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Walker Art Center, and Worcester Art Museum. Their artists' books are in the collections of the Yale Center for British Art, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Joan Flasch Artists Book Collection, and Bainbridge Island Arts Museum among others.
In addition to their shared photographic practice, they are contributing editors to the photographic journal Lenscratch. They maintain studios in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Chicago, Illinois.
TOM FINKE | Englewood, CO
America: Footprints in Time 1982-2012, 2015.
Photo Book,
9.5 x 10. inches.
Edition of 600.
As a photographer, my chief interest is to observe fleeting facial expressions and the constantly changing placements and angles of bodies in space. Unconscious gestures and calculated poses interest me alike. All of us are signaling to one another all the time, both deliberately and involuntarily. My photographs are just another part of the constant ritual of communication in which we all participate.
America is the 4th of July and Labor Day, picnics, parades, and county fairs. It is skyscrapers and small towns. It is baseball and jazz, poetry and rodeos, pancakes, hot dogs, and popcorn. It is summer storms and lightning bugs, crisp autumns, and winter blizzards. It is every kind of landscape from mountains to deserts, farms to seacoasts, vast plains to wide rivers. It inspires hopes and nurtures dreams, and it never ceases to amaze.
I was born in southwest Ohio, but I have spent time in every state. Wherever I go, I make photographs of people and places that reflect some part of this big country I call home. I particularly love making photographs on the street. I am drawn to the energy, the electricity, and the sheer excitement of being in crowds. I do not interfere with what I see; I try instead to flow with it. I use my camera to record what I noticed, but I am also glad to discover in my pictures what I missed seeing when the shutter fired.
Tom Finke was born in Dayton, Ohio and completed his undergraduate degree in science at the University of Dayton. He continued his graduate studies in science at Wright State University and obtained his M.F.A. degree from the University of Cincinnati. Finke continued his education by attending photographic workshops at The Zone VI Studios in Vermont, the Maine Photographic Workshops in Rockport, Maine, and enrolled in the PhD program at Arizona State University. He has traveled extensively across the United States, Asia, and the South Pacific and I currently live in Denver, Colorado.
Finke began teaching college-level photography in 1979 and currently teaches in Denver, Colorado, concentrating on classes in photography dealing with the aesthetic, technical, historical, and critical analysis of the photographic processes.
Tom considers his work to be social documentary photography, centering on the aspects of who we are and how we present ourselves. He has been working on this current body of work for over 30 years. In addition to this work, he has produced numerous other bodies of work including a series of Hand-Colored Black and White images made primarily in Arizona concentrating on the artificial landscape many find in the desert Southwest that can be viewed at www.tomfinke.com. In 2015, Sokyusha Publishing in Japan, published two books of his work, one consisting of Social Documentary Images made in the America and the other Social Documentary Images made in Japan. Additionally, he has produced two limited edition hand-made books in association with Bloodroot Press in Ann Arbor, MI. Finke’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in corporate and private collections.
FRANK HAMRICK | RUSTON, LA
When the light becomes eternal, 2023
Handmade Artist's Book,
9 x 9 inches,
Edition of 50.
Wet plate collodion is central to all the works I am submitting. The two tintypes in this collection, "Split Tree" and "Arch Branch" are from my ongoing examination of how water impacts all aspects of our lives and environment. Both of these images were made beside waterways. Beyond water and nature being subjects in my photographs, I am also aware of how my use of analog photo processes depend on the use of water and materials derived from nature.
The 2023 artist’s book "When the light becomes eternal" consists of 14 tintype photographs altered by moving subjects, shifting light, failing equipment, recycled materials, as well as contaminated, homemade, and exhausted chemistry. The book’s title, based on a toy drone’s poorly translated instructions, refers to photographs recording the light reflecting off subjects. The tintypes, made in Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and Tennessee, feature outdoor portraits of blurred, shadowed, and washed out individuals, as if they were experiencing the 2017 eclipse, which also appears in the book.
The collodion image on the "One Way Out" vinyl record is part of in-progress series of photographs made in locations related to the musicians and/or song titles on the record. In this particular example, the lyrics from the song "One Way Out" performed live at The Fillmore East by The Altman Brothers Band from their double album "Eat A Peach", mentions a lover climbing out an upstairs window to escape being discovered. The site photographed features an open second story window in one portion of the composition, but also features the sign for the H&H restaurant, which is significant to the early history of the Allman Brothers Band. The H&H restaurant is located on a street between their shared dwelling "The Big House" and their manager's office downtown on Cotton Avenue in Macon, Georgia. The H&H is a soul food restaurant. When the band first started two members of the Allman
Brothers asked for two plates of food and six forks to go and promised to pay for them upon returning from their tour, which they did and then asked for two more plates of food on credit. The co-owner "Mama Louise" remembered seeing all six band members sharing the two plates out on the sidewalk and told them to all come eat inside. The band thanked her on their second album in the credits, "Vittles: Louise". Not only did Louise feed the band when they were just starting, she welcomed an integrated band into her business at a time when much of the south was still residually segregated. The H&H is still open today and is a stop for any Allman Brothers fan making a pilgrimage to Macon to visit their graves in Rose Hill and/or the "Big House" which is now a museum.
Frank Hamrick’s artist’s books unite his photography, writing, papermaking, and letterpress relief printing. His tintypes have appeared in album packaging for Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, and Kevin Gordon. Frank’s work has been spotlighted by NPR and Oxford American Magazine and collected by institutions including the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Seattle Art Museum. Born and raised in Georgia, Frank has lived in New Mexico, Maine, and Italy. Frank is currently a Professor and MFA graduate program coordinator at Louisiana Tech University’s School of Design in Ruston.
ROHINA HOFFMAN | LOS ANGELES, CA
Embrace, 2023.
Photo Book,
10.25 x 8 inches, 144 pages.
Edition of 750.
Embrace is a book by Rohina Hoffman that reflects on the theme of uncertainty while combining two photographic projects. In Gratitude, made during the pandemic, is a typology of portraits celebrating food and family and how we find comfort in times of unease. Generation 1.75 is a visual memoir of identity, belonging, and the complexities of acculturation.
The two projects are held apart by the central essay printed on blue paper in English and translated into Hindi. There are also small poems printed on smaller pages that encourage the reader to read, touch, turn and interact with the book. The design of the book as well as the decisions that went into producing it are very much a part of creating the experience that is reflected in the photographic works.
Rohina Hoffman is an Indian-born American artist whose narrative work focuses on themes of identity, home, adolescence, and the female experience. Raised in New Jersey but now residing in California, Hoffman received her BS in Neuroscience and MD both from Brown University. She also studied photography at the Rhode Island School of Design. After years of practicing as a clinical neurologist, she now focuses on her artistic practice.
Hoffman published her first monograph Hair Stories with Damiani Editore (February 2019) accompanied by a solo exhibition at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School. Hair Stories is held in many notable public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Getty Research Institute, Cleveland Institute of Art, and over 25 university libraries.
Her second book, Embrace, with Schilt Publishing was just released October 2022 (Europe) and January 2023 (U.S.). A solo show of this work was exhibited at the Griffin Museum of Photography (April 2023.) In 2021, she was the winner of the Purchase Award with Atlanta Photography Group and several of her prints from her Generation 1.75 project were acquired by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia.
Her photographs have been exhibited in juried group shows both nationally and internationally in venues such as The Center for Fine Art Photography, Griffin Museum, Atlanta Photography Group, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Los Angeles Center for Photography, Photo LA, and A. Smith Gallery. She has been published in Marie Claire Italia, F-Stop Magazine, Lenscratch, Shots Magazine, Dodho Magazine and Aesthetica Magazine among others.
KEVIN McCORMICK | RICHMOND, VA
Somewhere the Air is Right, 2024
Photo Book,
8 x 10 inches x 48 Pages.
Edition #1 of 50.
Somewhere the Air is Right documents the process of touring in a small punk band. It focuses on the people and places encountered while playing mostly do-it-yourself venues across the country. These spaces are defiant in nature and often extremely fragile worlds that burn bright and fast. The lens then turns towards bandmates, creating repeating characters that emerge and develop throughout the story presented. The photo-zine is named after a lyric from an unreleased song, and the zine itself is a part of a larger, ongoing project titled, "I'm Wasting My Life".
Kevin McCormick is a musician and photographer based in Richmond, Virginia. His work documents strange characters and mystical places, turning them into symbols that create meaning within absurd worlds. This fills moments with purpose, urging viewers to notice the beauty of synchronicities in everyday life.
LAILA NAHAR | FOLSOM, CA
Will you come to Rome with me?, 2023.
Handmade Artist Photo Book,
8 x 5.75 inches, 132 pages.
Edition 12 of 15.
Will you come to Rome with me? is a handmade artist photobook exploring memories of my mother through family portraits and places in film/slides and texts from my journals.
Memories are weaved together like sarees that my mother used to drape in. I am looking back on memories that were dear to my mother and those that I grew up with. Memories that stayed in my dreams and consciousness, and those that almost faded. Every few years my mother seemed to shed her old self to new roles but, essence of her never changed. I look for the passage of time belonged to us, sense of her and the invisible bond connecting me with her. It is a dialogue of a trip to Rome together; a journey that we never took. But it is a story of her presence in me and me in her. Wherever I can be, she can be in me and I in her.
I had been journaling on this project since 2009 - bits and pieces here and there, and gathering photos as well. The workshop by Yumi Goto (Reminder Photography Stronghold) inspired me to face this very personal journey of mine and make possible the artist book form.
Laila Nahar is a lens-based artist and book-maker in California, USA. She lived her life in stark cultural contrast, born and brought up in Bangladesh and eventually migrated to USA.
Laila is primarily a self-taught photographer and handmade artist book-maker exploring belonging, memory, cultural and collective identity. She took photo bookmaking workshops with Elizabeth Avedon, Void Impromptu (Publisher), Melanie McWhorter, Yumi Goto, Center of Book Arts in NYC and Susan Kae Grant.
'Will you come to Rome with me?' handmade artist book selected for the DUMMY AWARD 2024 shortlist. ‘I Have Been Here Before’ handmade photobook selected for the ‘12th Annual Self-Published PhotoBook Show’ (Feb22). Shortlisted in the Independent Category Lucie Photo Book Prize 2022. Also, featured in PhotoBook Journal and Thinkingaboutphoto. 'Unfolding: Color of Life - Old Delhi' hand-made photobook selected for the ‘13th Annual Self-Published PhotoBook Show' Griffin Museum of Photography (Nov-Feb23). 'Unfolding' selected as one of best photobooks in 2022 by Women/non-binary on TheLuupe.com. Honorable mention in "Back on the Shelf" by FilterPhoto in exhibition ('23). Photographs of these projects in several group exhibitions by PH21, F-Stop, PhotoPlace, SEC4P, thecuratedfridge, 18th Julia Margaret Award, Griffin Museum of Photography etc. Laila's handmade artist photobooks are in permanent collections of several libraries, including University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rhode Islands School of Design, University of Richmond, Virgina etc.
KATIE PROCK | VIRGINIA BEACH, VA
Nowheresville, 2024
Handmade Photo Book,
8 x 10.5 inches, 16 pages.
Unique.
Nowheresville is a handmade accordion book that includes fifteen photographic collages. The project pairs the sensation of being lost in one’s own internal landscape with the experience of being geographically lost. Overlaying psychic geography onto physical, the compositions plot this borderless state using images taken across the United States. The sparse collages highlight desolate landscapes, inscrutable signs, scraps of a map, partially erased pencil marks, and lonely human figures navigating empty white space. Influenced by the eerie landscapes of the surrealist movement, Nowheresville twists the familiar into a maze of misfortunes lurking just out of view.
Katie Prock is a photographic artist and book maker. Prock earned her MFA in Studio Art at Florida Atlantic University, where she now works as an instructor. Her practice utilizes alternative printing techniques and incorporates handcrafted processes which emphasize chance occurrence and imperfections. Her work and research focus on topics such as identity, gender, family history, and girlhood. In addition to being exhibited across the United States, Prock’s work has been featured abroad in the Body + Memory + City Photo Festival in Alicante, Spain, and Fotofestival Lenzburg in Switzerland.
IDALIA VAZQUEZ-ACHURY | PHILADELPHIA, PA
Marisma, 2022
Photo Book,
6 x 9 inches (9 x 20 inches Open)
Edition #2 of 3.
Marisma is a high-quality, limited-edition series of three signed, numbered books. Each book is a hybrid, hand-constructed and offset printed, containing two overlapping signatures that open flat to three pages, allowing the viewer to play with the narrative of the book’s visual structure.
"Marisma," which translates to "estuary," refers to turbulent and transitional marine environments that support some of the most diverse and productive ecosystems in the world. This ecological metaphor helps me convey my experience as a Colombian-born woman, mother, and artist living in the United States. The book raises questions about representation and identity. As Edward Soja said, “Many migrants exist in a liminal or ‘Third Space’ between cultures and nationalities, physical locations, and imagined or represented spaces.” We construct a sense of place, home, and identity at these intersections. Like an estuary, this dynamic visual experience alludes to the nonlinear and complex immigrant existence – a life full of profound, transformative, and dislocating moments.
Idalia Vasquez-Achury is a Colombian-born, Philadelphia-based lens media artist and educator. Exploring performance, installation, and photography, her practice centers on Latinx immigration and identity formation, delving into physical and mental spaces of transition and perpetual becoming. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses photography, artist books, and large-scale photographic installations. Currently, Idalia teaches photography at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University.
In 2023, Vasquez-Achury was the winner of the 97th Annual at the Print Center, Philadelphia, where she was awarded a solo exhibition. The same year, she received the Blake Bradford Filter Club Artist in Residence award. Her work has been featured in various solo and group exhibitions, and her artist books are part of collections at the University of the Arts and the Charles Library at Temple University. Idalia earned an MFA in Photography from Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University.
GWEN WALSTRAND | SPRINGFIELD, MO
After All, 2024.
Handmade Book of Palladium Prints, Cloth Cover, Archival Pigment Print End Papers,
9 x 12 inches.
Edition #1 of 2.
These photographs are made in a time of fear and uncertainty. Contemplating the future world, though, also requires us to recognize the hope and ingenuity embodied literally and figuratively in its young citizens. Our responses to wildness, beauty, human nature, and the complicated forces behind each determines our future and our children’s. These hopeful photographic figments are presented to emphasize our inherent fragility, resiliency, and connectedness.
“There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead – as if innocence had ever been – and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved. But there is no one but us.” -- Annie Dillard
Gwen Walstrand is a Springfield, Missouri based artist and Professor of Photography at Missouri State University. Gwen has exhibited and presented her visual work in national and international exhibitions including in Italy, Finland, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and throughout the United States. Her work has been published in Orion Magazine-Nature/Culture/Place and in two editions of Christopher James’ Book of Alternative Photographic Processes. Gwen’s photographs have been collected by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Tenerife Espacio de las Artes in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Mulvane Art Museum in Topeka, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock, as well as by private collections.
SARA J. WINSTON, AARON CANIPE, & NAT WARD | RED HOOK, NY
Shades, 2023
Push Pull Editions Photo Book in Slipcase Two Pigmented Inkjet Prints tipped in Slipcase,
12 x 9 inches.
Sold Out Edition of 15.
Parenthood. It can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling. Yet it presents a multitude of challenges that test even the most resilient person. It is not for everyone, but a journey that is ever-shifting and filled with love, joy, and growth, as well as pain and exhaustion. To choose to be a parent is an act of radical optimism.
Shades presents the parallel paths of Aaron Canipe and Sara J. Winston as they traverse the experience of raising their children. Begun as part of “A New Nothing” (www.anewnothing.com), the photographers have held an image-based conversation from October 4th, 2017 to present day.
The Collector’s Edition comes in a slipcase with two wings, each containing a pigmented inkjet print from each artist. The image pairings are selected sets from the artists’ conversation on “A New Nothing.” Each box will contain a unique set of two images.
Sara J. Winston is an artist based in New York. She is the author of Foibles & Avoidance (National Monument Press, 2024) Shades (with Aaron Canipe and Nat Ward, Push Pull Editions, 2023), A Lick and a Promise (Candor Arts, 2017) and Homesick (Zatara Press, 2015). Sara is the Photography Program Coordinator at Bard College; on the faculty of the Penumbra Foundation Long Term Photobook Program; a contributor to Lenscratch and the photo-eye.