Moser Performing Arts Center Gallery
“Directions in
Contemporary Photography”
August 18th through October 10th
@ The Moser Performing Arts Center Gallery
The University of St. Francis
Featuring:
JEFF OTTO-O’BRIEN, Vancouver, Canada
JOHANNA REED, Santa Barbara, California
ESTEBAN SCHIMPF, based in Chicago, Illinois
AMY WAINWRIGHT, based in Chicago, Illinois
The University of St. Francis celebrates the start of the 2008-2009 academic year with a group exhibition featuring four unique directions in contemporary photography. Visitors to the Moser Gallery will be challenged by a group of young, ambitious artists, for whom the documentary potential of the photographic medium is a carefully manipulated, malleable force. Comprised of small to large-scale, color and black-and-white prints, “INDEX” offers-up glimpses of mundane, domestic and suburban environments, sarcastic manipulations of digital photographs, and mysteriously conjured abstractions of the natural world. Collectively, the artists featured in “INDEX” affirm that the testimonial nature of photography is not unconditionally guaranteed, but rather a variable that is continually subject to the ambivalence, trickery, and mysticism of human curiosity.
Born in 1980, Jeff Otto O’Brien is a Vancouver-based photographer whose work has been exhibited and published throughout the UK, USA, and Canada. Mr. O’Brien’s spontaneous approach to photography focuses on the mundane interactions between humans and their environments, with a particular interest in how photography can dictate a synthesis between the two (www.otto-obrien.com).
California photographer, Johanna Reed will begin her graduate studies in Design and Media Arts this fall at the University of California, Los Angeles. In little over two years, Ms. Reed’s work has been included in numerous group exhibitions in California and New York. Johanna’s photographs are skillfully mounted on handsome wood panels, installed in small groupings and exhibit a technically playful, yet mysterious approach to composition and imagery. Ranging from dreamy natural environments to hazy, stoic figures and clinical views of anonymous interior architecture, Ms. Reed’s images emit an artistic spirit of wandering adventure and enduring curiosity (www.johannareed.net).
A native of Bogota, Columbia, Esteban Schimpf recently completed his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After completing a residency at the Ox-Bow Painting Residency and a group exhibition at the Contemporary Art Workshop in Chicago, Mr. Schimpf plans to relocate and continue his active studio practice in Los Angeles, California. Esteban’s multi-disciplined and seemingly carefree studio practice reveals a humorous and observant fascination with architecture, modern design, and celebrity culture (www.estebanschimpf.com).
Born in 1982, Amy Wainwright is a native of Toledo, Ohio and holds a BFA in Fine Art (2004) from Bowling Green University. Currently, Amy lives in Chicago, where she is working towards a MFA in Fine Art from Columbia College. Ms. Wainwright’s skillfully cropped, large-scale prints provide unvarnished glimpses of lonely domestic environments. Familiar Midwestern architectural elements, such as kitchens, bathrooms, and living rooms sit quietly, populated only by the solemn evidence of personal hygiene and consumerism (www.amywainwright.com).-Paul Erschen, MPAC Director