Carmen Teixidor says, "A while ago I was confronted with a very difficult health crisis which prompted me to create a series of self-portraits. The title of this series is "Framed: Self-portraits with life and death on my mind".

Holding the camera I faced a mylar reflective surface which distorted my features with the slightest movement.
As my face melted or twisted  my camera caught my expressions of sadness, rage, or angst as they appeared in front of me.
I was contemplating my own mortality.  I look directely into my face melting or  becoming like a death mask. In these  fourty some portraits I can see denial as well as horror.  Thanks to the distance created by the mirroring surface and the camera I am able to acknowledge and ownthose feelings.
Notes: The distortions are entirely due to the mylar. The frames are part of the prints.
  
I was born in France, and came to New York as a young adult . I never left.  As a child and teenager I always drew. 

However coming to New York and hardly speaking English I had to work.  I became a teacher and for many years art was not a priority at all.  At some point I met Pedro Silva, a sculptor mosaicist, and I learned the art of mosaics. From then on I never stopped making art. 

I started making life-size sculptures., then picked up a camera.  My first photographs were were mirror reflections of my body. Because I was using several mirrors the body was intersected by the various mirror lines. 

That was followed by video and the use of the computer.  Right now with all my photographs and video digitized I mainly use the computer to manipulate and print them.

One highlight in my career was the sale and installation of two life-size sculptures on the Rockefeller University campus.  Another one was the installation of a mosaic mural at the Harlem Hospital.  Right now some of my work is part of the permanent collection of Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer center.  I concentrate on selling to individuals.

MY website for earlier work:  www.carmen teixidor.com
or for more recent work:  instagram.com/carmen.teixidor
 

Review by curator Jane Szabo:
"Cat Coppenrath’s, Autopsy Report is such a simple yet chilling photograph. I was immediately struck by the simplicity of the presentation and the force of the image.

The envelope, which bulges at the seams, and its contents which were carefully tucked back in after reading, suggests one could cram the reality of the situation back in and pretend it never happened. Yet the owner chooses to hold on to this tragic memento for decades. How do you throw away the last vestiges of a loved one’s life, no matter how tragic?"

Cat Coppenrath says, "On March 13th, 1998, my half sister disappeared. She was found 4 days later near my grandparents house in Dedham, Massachusetts. My sister was 23 when she died. I was 8 years old.

This was my first close experience with death and an experience which colored much of my childhood. From this moment on, I would become very familiar with the concept of death and dying by attending wakes for family members who met the fate of old age and relatives who met the fate of cancer. I grieved my parent’s marriage as the death of my sister created great distance between them. I moved schools, left friends behind, and moved on as people, places, and things became a distant memory. As many people say, time heals all but - do these memories and experiences actually leave us?
When I was 8 is a personal photo documentary project which looks at my experience with death and dying from the perspective of my sister’s loss. All images created are of items inside of a box which has lived in the garage of my mother’s house for the past 20 years. I have looked through this box over the years when I seek understanding of my sister’s death. All of these items all have to do with her. Aside from memories and photographs, these are the things we have deemed important to remember, and also inside of this box, the painful things we may have chosen to forget.

My current work aims to look at life experience, memory, and process. Do we ever heal completely from loss? How do we choose to remember? What does it mean to really move on? Through projects focused on death, loss, and bereavement, I am exploring how this experience impacts personal wellbeing, family dynamics, and relationships through symbolic objects and memory.

My goal is to continue to explore this theme through future projects to normalize the universality and diversity of end of life, aging, death, and dying."

Cat Coppenrath (b. 1990), is a photographer, teaching artist, and social worker currently based in the San Diego / Tijuana, Mexico border region. After receiving her Masters of Social Work from New York University in 2015, Cat began to focus her career on the integration of social work, community arts, and photography.
 
Having over 6 years of experience working with underrepresented populations, Cat has worked primarily in social work settings and non-profit arts based organizations. With a strong interest in both written and visual narrative in the processing of experience, Cat has focused on expanding this work into the participatory realm. In her personal work, she is interested in exploring the power of the image in present day context, reframing what this image looks like and means in public spaces.
 
Thus far in 2018, Cat has exhibited personal work in various exhibitions including San Diego City College’s Women in Light exhibition and The Front Arte Cultura’s Dia De La Mujer exhibition where she won People’s Choice. Cat is currently a recipient of the California Arts Council’s Artist in Communities grant and has instructed various photography programs and workshops through organizations in San Diego including The AjA Project, A Reason to Survive, and The Burn Institute.

This year she has been the lead teaching artist on participatory exhibitions including Our Collective Truth: Examining Civil Liberties in America and Creative Action Against the School to Prison Pipeline, both collaborations with The AjA Project.
 
Born and raised in San Diego, Cat has both lived and worked in San Diego, San Francisco, New York City, and Tijuana, Mexico.

Website / Contact Info:
www.catcoppenrath.com
@voodooeyefoto
 

Cherie Truesdell says, "Due to a religious upbringing, I've always been fascinated by the brevity of life and acutely aware of my own mortality.  What happens when we depart this existence? 

Do we dissipate into white light or are we baptized into the land of milk and honey?  As an adult, I find myself thinking more about what we carry with us when we go- our hopes and dreams, our struggles, our personal narratives, our accumulated knowledge. 

Memories of departed loved ones often disappear with us forever.  As firsthand knowledge of the experiences and philosophies of the past are lost,  a vacuum widens dividing us irrevocably from history."

Cherie E. Truesdell is a narrative fine art photographer who uses symbolism, allegory, and constructed tableau  to explore emotion, desire, and the feminine experience. 

Cherie's work is greatly influenced by her upbringing in Louisiana where life was permeated with religion, pathos, and tall tales. 

This upbringing transformed Cherie into an avid literature and art enthusiast and cultivated in her a love for story-telling in all forms. 

Cherie's work has been described as "displaced fairy tale" and has been juried into many group exhibits throughout the U.S. 

Cherie lives and works in Marietta, Georgia and is currently represented by gallery 43 and The Loft.  


Image: Habit- Truesdell says, "They say old habits die hard.  Habits are one of the last vestiges of our identity we carry with us to the end."

www.cherietruesdell.com
 

Truesdell says, "Most of us first confront mortality through the loss of a pet. I created this image to honor all of the lives which affect ours before they're gone."

Truesdell says, "We are but a vapor and our stories slip away despite our best efforts."

Claire Mallett says, "From the series - 'That Which Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger', "That which does not kill, you makes you stronger Is a story of heartache and the loss of love.

A reflection of choices I have made in my life that has led me down the path I tread. Having recently gone through a stressful and dark time, each image tells a story of the journey of my heart and soul resilient strength and perseverance. During this transitional period I have let go of a lot of things that seemed so important a few years ago. Maybe I won’t be a wife or a mother, and life won’t be as I envisioned it.

As I went to hell on earth and back, stared the demon square in the eyes, and came through the other side, my soul is stronger and brighter than ever, and as my mother always used to say, “that which does not kill you, makes you stronger”.

Born and raised in the English countryside, Claire Mallett fell in love in photography as a teenager after receiving an Olympus camera for Christmas.

After completing a Degree in Media, Journalism and Photography in Bristol, England Claire moved to Los Angeles, California.

The distractions of a vibrant city like LA meant that photography took a back seat in her life for about a decade, but in 2008 she reignited her passion and hasn’t looked back….


http://www.clairemallettphotography.com
 

Review by curator Jane Szabo:
"In Dana Walker’s image, Joan’s Trinity, the artifacts on the wall of pictures once hanging, now destined to be distributed to a mourning relative, are ghostly and haunting. The stains dripping down the wall are a bit inexplicable to me, and leave me feeling that the artworks themselves have also died with the passing of the owner.

This photograph gives me the visceral sensation that someone has left the room. I feel the emptiness, the quiet and the sadness. The profound effects of this picture work in two ways: first as a documentary photograph that tells the story of the emptying of a home, and secondly as a poetic narrative that speaks to the tentative aftereffects of a life lived.
 
Dana, the title for one of your images, Measured Spaces, Time Suspended, aptly describes all of the work you submitted, and gives me entrance into your experience of the suspended moments each photograph depicts. As adult children of elderly or deceased parents, we cling to these moments and recollections of places, which both preserve our loved ones, and our own personal history.

These photographs look backwards in time; I am curious if you are also making images that address your own moment in time, and how you move forward after the passing of a loved one.

How do we as artists, in this era of selfies, and the overwhelming documentation of every moment, create lasting images that speak more broadly to our human existence?"

Dana Walker says, "Memento mori-
Selfies present unquestionable proof of our existence… though a controlled, often hyper-realized, narrative of self. But unlike selfies, we have little to no control over mortality.

As an artist, I’ve long been intrigued by the places people inhabit and I’m interested in how, as an outsider, I can use photography to create new insights into loved ones. To re-imagine them solely through their belongings… through the spaces they inhabit.

The theme of this exhibit, “Confronting Mortality,” really spoke to me because it reflects concepts frequently explored in my work. My series, “measured spaces: time suspended,” reflects aspects of this theme … this series seeks to capture the transient nature of life… to create an intimate portrait (real or imagined) of someone, whether a close family member or a stranger, through fragments of their memories. 

Memories that inhabit spaces and haunt belongings. It is through these memories and the photographs I make that I feel better equipped to understand my own moment in time…to understand my existence…and to confront my own mortality."
 
Additional review by curator Ellen Jantzen:
"This is a very haunting photo! I’m not sure I understand the title, “Joan’s Trinity” because I clearly see four ghostly remains of formerly hung images. Plus there are four pieces of artwork leaning against the wall with a sticky note that I think says “Joan”.  I find that the whole image has a sentimental and voyeuristic quality to it. I don’t get the feeling that the pieces are going to be distributed to a mourning relative as Jane Szabo states, but perhaps there was a statement stating that. I get more of a feeling of abandonment, like perhaps a place where these hung for years unattended."
 http://www.ellenjantzen.com/

More about  Walker:
Dana L. Walker’s imagery deals with elements of time, fragments of memories, gesture, color, texture… remnants of past, present, future. Using photographic medium, she creates intimate portraits of objects and places that are composed, constructed, or abstracted to create new compositional spaces.

Walker’s work has been inspired by a number of artists including Mark Rothko, Edward Hopper, Uta Barth, Hiroshi Sugimoto and her father, artist Larry M. Walker.

The daughter of an artist/art educator, Walker has been creating photographic images since she was 8 or 9 years old. She received her formal training in photography at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, worked for several years creating images for commercial use, and eventually migrated back to her practice of fine art photography.

During the day, Walker works as the Managing Director, Public Programs at ArtCenter College of Design. She lives in Tujunga, CA with her husband, Emile.

Highlights of career/Recent exhibitions:

6th Annual “Open” Art Exhibition, Light Space and Time Online Art Gallery, Special Merit award. October 2016. https://www.lightspacetime.art/open-2016-art-exhibition-special-merit-mo-thru-zo/
"Brand 44 Works on Paper Annual National Juried Exhibition," Glendale, CA. September 2016
Pair Shaped Collaborative Project, Series 20. Creative dialogue/call and response project by photographer Dana L. Walker + filmmaker Karissa Hahn. Published online February 2016. http://www.pairshaped.org/artists/walker-dana-l/
"Privates Lives, Public Space," K-Collective, London, UK. Two images selected for book to accompany this exhibition. November 2015
5th Annual "Botanicals" Exhibition, Light Space and Time Online Art Gallery, Special Merit award. October 2015. https://www.lightspacetime.art/botanicals-2015-art-exhibition-special-merit/
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery 2015 Juried Exhibition, July 2015
5th Annual “Abstracts” Exhibition, Light Space and Time Online Art Gallery, Special Recognition. October 2014. http://www.lightspacetime.com/abstracts-art-exhibition-photography-category-2/
"Brand 42: 42nd Annual National Juried Exhibition of Works on Paper," Glendale, CA. May 2014

contact info:
danaimages@me.com
(626) 379-6254
www.danaimages.com
 

Review from curator Jane Szabo:
"Nina Weinberg’s image Doran Transition and Diane Fenster’s Flores Para el Muerto stop time for a moment. I love the contrast between the two images. Weinberg opts for lush color and clarity and seems to celebrate the beauty of a life, while Fenster’s soft focus black and white image creates a quiet memento to a life just passed."


Diane Fenster/Asleep in the Arms of Morpheus. Fenster says, "I was invited to be one of five women who witnessed the final two days of a dear friend’s life and prepare his body after his death on the third day. During this time, I was also kindly given permission to photograph the process in between my times actively assisting.

There are two sets of photographs concerning the death of my friend. One group of photos are of his life as he lay dying, sleeping away his final hours, dreaming whatever dreams the administered soporific gave to him. They are also about the care and love given him as he faded. They capture a light that lurked beneath his flesh, as his blood still flowed slowly in his veins, and his breath became shallow. The second group of photographs were taken after his death. 

As I pondered these images I wondered if you could see the difference between the life and death images. Did they record some fleeting difference? They also witness the process of how his family and friends honored and loved the person now stretched out naked before them, ready for oil and scent, for prayers and protection, for flowers and a swath of cloth. There was this magnificent and powerful intimacy that cannot be measured. Once you have washed the dead, death is experienced differently. 

This series has a direct relationship to the post mortem photography of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when death often occurred at home, not hidden away in nursing homes or hospitals and the photographs were cherished mementos of a departed family member. 

I view myself as an alchemist, using alternative process, antique photographic methods, toy camera and digital tools to delve into fundamental human conditions and issues. My work is literary and emotional, full of symbolism and multiple layers of meaning with a style that marries photography with evocative and fragmented imagery. I am currently exploring several antiquarian processes including lumen printing and photo-encaustic.

My work (exhibited since 1990) first received notice during the era of early experimentations with digital imaging and has appeared in numerous publications. I have been a guest lecturer at many seminars and conferences. My work has been internationally exhibited and is part of museum, corporate and private collections. 

Career Highlights:

Exhibited in the 4th Biennale of Fine Art and Documentary Photography in Berlin, finalist in the Alternative Process category of the 9th Pollux Awards, a finalist in the Alternative Process and Portraits categories of the 7th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, a finalist in the Alternative Process and Fine Art categories of the 8th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, published in the DIFFUSION ANNUAL 2016.

Finalist in both the Fine Art and Nude & Figure Categories of the Second Charles Dodson Awards. MOSCOW PHOTO AWARDS Honorable Mention for the What We Leave Behind series. Honorable Mention 2018 WOMEN SEEN BY WOMEN, A SPECIAL EDITION OF THE JULIA MARGARET CAMERON AWARDS. 2016 POLLUX AWARDS, Finalist in the Alternative Process category.

Recent exhibitions include NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY FELLOWSHIP COMPETITION - DEVELOPED WORK, Midwest Center for Photography, Wichita, KS for my HY•ST•ER•IA: Body as Battleground series. This exhibition features current and relevant work of sixteen national photographers that are helping define the pulse of contemporary photography in the United States. Included in ALL ABOUT PHOTO Magazine first issue LIGHT, selections from my Midnight Mysteries series. EXPANDING BOUNDARIES, Los Angeles Center of Photography, FACES at SITE: Brooklyn, FotofFoto gallery’s 13th National Competition, Let There be Light and Shadow at the Umbrella Arts Gallery in New York, Photography as Response at The Center for Fine Art Photography, Intimate Portraits exhibit at the SE Center for Photography, The Essence of Monochrome International Photo Competition sponsored byThe Stockholm Diary and exhibited in Budapest, SohoPhoto Alternative Process exhibit at the SohoPhoto Gallery in New York and recently received an Honorable Mention in the LAPhotoCurator competition THE TANGIBLE PHOTOGRAPH juried by Blue Mitchell.

Also included in included in the Illuminate exhibit curated by Elizabeth Avedon, the Alternative Process exhibit juried by Christopher James at the Center for Fine Art Photography."

https://www.lensculture.com/diane-fenster

​Review by Curator Jane Szabo:
"And finally, I selected a pair of images from Edward Boches, Cherry Garcia and One Day Later, because I couldn’t just pick just one; they are equally compelling."

Edward Boches says of his series, 'Slowly at First', "For the last two years, my 87-year-old Mom, Gloria Boches Abramson, had been housebound as her physical condition slowly deteriorated. In May of 2018, pneumonia sent her to the ICU and left her even weaker, her lungs and heart both compromised.

Despite having all of her mental faculties and sense of humor, she decided enough was enough. She rejected the hospital’s recommendation for rehab and opted instead for hospice care. She was ready and eager to die, but determined to die at home.

When I asked Mom if I could document her final days as a way to both witness her courage and confront my own fear of losing her, she agreed.  She had been an artist herself -- a painter, illustrator, and musician -- and knew that this was important to me.

In hospice care, she started to improve, and we both thought this project might go on for six months. But then suddenly, her health took a turn for the worse, and in a matter of days it was over.

Slowly at First documents my Mom’s last month on earth and all the emotions it triggered. More importantly, it helped me process the experience of losing someone I loved."

For over 30 years, Edward Boches was an award winning copywriter, creative director and chief innovation officer at Mullen (now MullenLowe), an ad agency he helped define, shape and build.

Upon retiring in in 2013,  he turned his creative energies to teaching and ultimately to documentary photography, where his primary interest lies in exploring how contemporary America lives, works and plays.

Recently, in response to the divisive economic and political climate, Boches has sought out communities and subcultures that bring people together, photographing urban skate parks, hip hop dance crews, inner city boxing gyms and his own extended family.

In spring 2018, the first chapter of his ongoing project Seeking Glory, which celebrates the courage and strength it takes to be a fighter, opened as a solo show at the Griffin Museum’s SoWa gallery and has also been published in the Lowell Sun, Stand Magazine, and the Social Documentary Network. Other projects have been exhibited at the Griffin Museum in Winchester, the Providence Center for Photographic Arts; and the Cape Portfolio at Bob Korn’s The Gallery Upstairs.

www.edwardboches.com
Contact: edwardboches@gmail.com
Phone: 978-473-6140

Elizabeth Harms sasy, "For the last 15 years I became the parent to my parents. I first cared for my mother and then my father through their unique journeys through dementia and finally death.

I actually never had to Confront Mortality, Mortality was part of my family and has lived with me daily. The photos in the "Peep Hole" series can be viewed as a metaphor for becoming comfortable with death, or confronting mortality.

Career Highlights:

My work has been exhibited at Woman Made Gallery and Hot House in Chicago. 

Contact Info:
elizabethneubauer@yahoo.com       
970-241-9790   
facebook: Harms Way
 

Gina M.says, "I am an artist who works in multiple mediums.

My work is whimsy with a dark side. I grew up in a funky and creative puppet family. Weekends were spent developing shows and hosting other children’s birthday parties. Grounded in that peculiar narrative, innocent imagery of teddy bears, toys, and puppets surface to create my art and the reactionary expressions of my inner emotional life. 

As a child, photography helped direct the focus outside of myself. I used instamatic cameras to photograph my toys. Pictures of isolation, obsolescence and melancholy filled my lens.  Today, my favorite shots are taken with minimal disturbance to the scene. I try to shoot it as I see it."

CV:

Gina M’s work is exhibited throughout California. In October 2017, Gallery 825 hosted a solo show ‘Midway’. Her ceramic and assemblage pieces received honorable mentions at the Ink&Clay 42 exhibit and TAG gallery at the 2018 LA OPEN. El Camino college art gallery requested her work for inclusion in two group shows, Personal Matters, and Mother and child.

Artist Gina M, a member of Los Angeles Art Association and Pasadena Society Of Artists, currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Iimgae: Expired: Digital photo of an urban landscape, expired parking meter and a pair of discarded shoes, printed on aluminum with real bullet holes. 48 x 16 x 2 in

https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/gina-m/collection/digital-photography

https://www.artistginam.com/

Gina@ArtistGinam.com
 

Image: Obsolete: digital print on metallic paper. The public telephone room at MOCA.
8.5 x 11 in

Image: Self-Deception:  Digital print on metallic paper.12 x 12 x 0.5 in

Jennifer Emery says, "Throughout my career as a photographer my main focus has been photographing people. From Commercial Portraiture and Street Photography to Artistic Nudes, always with the goal of expressing diversity in beauty and culture, in ways that both flatter the subject and express who people are as individuals. 

One main artistic focus has been on the female figure, which is prominent in my portfolio. I even published an educational book on “The Nude, Conceptual Approaches to Fine Art Photography”. I think my love of the nude stems from wanting to express beauty in such an ugly world. My goal is always to celebrate the female form without exploitation. In fact I teach on the subject in an effort to educate photographers on how to deal with nudes without creating uncomfortable objectifying images. Just as when learning to draw, one explores figure study, photographers who photograph people must do the same. In recent years I have started photographing crime-scenes for the LAPD. 

Having been raised in one of the more violent parts of the City of Los Angeles, and having experienced continual victimizations as a child, related to living in that community, I am currently preparing a visual autobiographical project that depicts and gives voice to growing up in what can often be a very predatory city. Now that I experience other’s trauma in my job, that are similar to my own, it would be a tribute to my career and life somehow coming full circle.

As a through-line of dealing with death and violence karmically, I have worked with the subject in a more surreal playful way with my series “Don’t Fuck With The Dead”. This work is both a still photography and video project that celebrates Dia De Los Muertos ceremonies. The tradition interests me because of the positive and visually beautiful expression on death that can be so ugly and scary."

Jennifer (Zivolich) Emery is an award winning photographer, educator, published author. She specializes in Commercial Portrait, Fashion, Celebrity & Lifestyle Photography & Video. 

Currently Jennifer is a part-time Photography Professor at Loyola Marymount University and previously taught in the photography department at Santa Monica Community College.  She is also a Forensics Crime Scene Photography Specialist with LAPD. She conducts various photography workshops and speaking engagements across the nation including Canon Live Learning, WPPI, LACP and Samy's Photo School.  Her publications with Amherst Media include, "Lighting Design for Commercial Portrait Photography”, and The Nude: Conceptual Approaches to Fine Art Photography , can be found on Amazon. In an effort to support professional and emerging photographers, Jennifer co-founded the  "Arts District Los Angeles Photo Collective".  She is also an Actor, Voiceover Artist, Screenwriter, and Indi-Producer/Director and currently is producing the Photography Happy Hour.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:

2 Time Published Author, Amherst Media Books, Lighting Design for Commercial Portrait Photography & The Nude, Conceptual Approaches to fine Art Photography
Co-Curator, ColorPop Group Photography Show - ADLA Photo Collective
Creator Photography Happy Hour Video tutorials
Silvershotz – The Contemporary Photography Magazine, Volume 11 by Clive Waring, “Jennifer Emery – USA – The Nude”
Los Angeles Center of Photography First Annual "Faculty, Member and Alumni” Artwork: (1) piece – “Blow
Wedding & Portrait Photographers International, Awards of Excellence Winner: Accolades of Excellence, Straight Out of Camera,              Title: “Blue” and Title: “Untitled”
National Photo Award, Creative Artistic Winner, Portraits, Title: “Pow, Pow” from “Pin-Me up” Series.
Volunteer Board Member/Co-Creator, Arts District Los Angeles Photography Collective, Los Angeles, CA, 2015-2017     
Contact info: cell: 323-804-6030  email: jemeryphoto@gmail.com  URL: http://www.jenniferemery.photo


WEB: www.jenniferemery.photo

Blog: http://www.jenniferemery.photo/blog

FBOOK ED: www.facebook.com/JenniferEmeryPhoto

TWITTER: www.twitter.com/jenniferZemery

INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/jenniferZemery

BUY MY BOOKs on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/author/jenniferemery

 

Jenn Wood says, "I am a mother, artist, and educator. I have produced art for at least the last thirty five years, starting after high school and never stopping.

My work is influenced by nature, humanity, decay, and renewal. Content may elude to water, urban or rural sites and structures, and human psychology and culture.

Compositional concerns include color, light, texture, marks, and form. I am a curious person and often experiment to find new approaches to my work."

Wood earned her BFA at MA College of Art & Design in Boston and her MFA at UMass Dartmouth, New Bedford campus. She did additional course work at SMFA Boston, and Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State.

Her work has been exhibited in over fifty juried and curated exhibitions in Brooklyn, NY, and Boston, Cambridge, and Provincetown, MA, among other locations, in galleries and university venues. It has been included in numerous shows curated and juried by noted museum curators, gallery owners, and artists.  Wood has been awarded  artist residencies at the C-Scape dune shack in Provincetown, MA, and the Plumbing Museum in Watertown, MA.

Wood's art is included in several private and corporate collections in Boston, Chicago, and throughout New England. Her studio is in Lowell, MA and she is also active in the Fort Point Arts Community in Boston. She has taught studio art courses at UMass Lowell, UMass Dartmouth, and Quincy College.  

Exhibition Highlights:

COLOR, National exhibition juried by Marcela Guerrero, Asst. Curator Whitney Museum of America Art, at BWAC Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Flat File selections, curator: Florence Neal, Director Kentler International Drawing Space Gall., Brooklyn, NY
15th National Prize Show, juror: Paul Ha, Director LIST Visual Arts Center at MIT, at Cambridge Art Galleries, Cambridge, MA
11th Annual Small Works Show, juror: by Amy Williams, 440 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Works on Paper, National Exhibition juried by Al Miner, Asst. Curator of Contemporary Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston at: So Shore Art Center, Cohasset, MA                            
Boston Young Contemporaries, Boston University Gallery 808, jurors: Pierrana Cavalchini, Curator at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Artists: Josephine Halvorson,      Kenji Nakayama          
In conjunction with, Sin Types August Group Show, A Gallery, Provincetown MA
Looking For America,  National exhibition organized by the artist collective For Freedoms, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain , CT 
Small Works 2018 Applicant Exhibition - Online, juried by Sharon Louden, Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 
Magical Dialogues, Three Person Exhibition , curated by Karen Van Welden-Herman, Chester Sidell Gallery at Essex Art Center, Lawrence, MA
Snap to Grid, International Group Show at LACDA, L.A. Center for Digital Art, Rex Bruce, Director, Los Angeles, CA  
Parks & Recreation, Atlantic Wharf Gallery, Boston, MA, juror: Lexi Lee Sullivan, Asst. Curator, deCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
Road Trip, Atlantic Wharf Gall., Boston MA, juror: Beth Kantrowitz, co-director Drive By Gall., Watertown, MA
Internal Combustion, Joseph Carroll juror, Dir. Carroll + Sons Gallery, for Fountain St. Gall., Framingham, MA
Red, White + Blue, Camilo Alvarez juror, founder of Samson Projects, New Orleans and Boston, Natioanal exhibition shown at Brookline (MA) Arts Center    
Chain Letter, Invitational Group Show, Samson Projects Gallery, Boston MA  
Industrial Strength, juried by Howard Yezerski for Fountain St. Gallery, Framingham MA
Light Traces, Two person show at the Plumbing Museum, Manoog Artist Residency, Watertown, MA
House, And, Group Show at FPAC Gallery at the Envoy, Leah Triplett Harrington, Director, Boston, MA      

www.jennwoodstudio.com 
   
instagram.com/jaeart1
 

Kristen Emack says of her series, 'You Are Not a Story I want To Tell', Gina was my best friend.

On April 10th, 2017, I removed the Guardian Angel clip from the visor of my old car, and dropped it into my bag. It was a gift Gina gave me 20 years ago to keep my passengers and I safe while driving. The very next day, Gina and her beloved Black Lab died in a fatal car accident when she unintentionally drove off a cliff and landed on the edge of the San Miguel River in a nest of twigs, rocks, leaves and feathers.

She was more than a friend. She was a sister, a mother, a compass, a North Star. I'm still trying to understand words like dead, death and gone in relationship to her. I used my camera for a year after the accident to try and accommodate the nuisances of grief and long term denial in the face of sudden loss."

Kristen Emack is a photographer and educator who lives and works in Cambridge, Ma. She holds a degree in Latin American & Caribbean Studies and is primarily a self taught photographer. 
Kristen has exhibited in group and solo shows in the Greater Boston area, and was awarded a Women in Photography grant at Maine Media Workshops. In 2015, Scout Magazine, named her Best Photographer in Cambridge. Her work has been published in PDN, Rangefinder and The Horn Book. She recently had an image on The Curated Fridge, for the second time, and has 5 images from her Appaloosa Series on The Fence currently.

Kristen's work includes two long- term projects that look at visibility, childhood and family.


www.kristen-emack.format.com

kjoynikoapple@gmail.com

Image-1986
"Gina was pregnant the September after graduation. Everyone told her to have an abortion because she was so young. When you tell a headstrong Aries what to do, they often do the opposite. Nastassja Tique Pace was born the following June and became the anchor in the storm, and the conduit for the deepest intuitive relationship between mother and daughter I had ever seen. Gina was abandoned by her own mother at 8 months. Becoming a mother allowed her to flood her daughter's life with the riches she never had. They spilled out in gestures of constant affection and laughter, gymnastics classes and art lessons, and a brand new, pretty Easter dress from The Red Balloon every Easter."


 

Image: Angel- A small, roughly trimmed photo of Gina sat under this angel for years on the oak dresser where I keep my house keys and extra change. On the back of it she  wrote," Kristen, I need you".

Image- Nastassja
I'm not able to remember much about our last conversation except that Gina told me she was ready to move. She didn't know what to bring or what to leave behind, and she was relieved that Nastassja was going to come down from Portland to help her pack. I was excited for her! She was finally ready to start fresh in a new place! I told her to start packing. I told her I loved her. I hung up.

Her journey wasn't what we all expected. Nastassja did come and she did pack up her mom's stuff. Some things went to Chrissy, some went to thrift stores and consignment shops. Her sisters on the East Coast got some clothes and jewelry and I have some things here. Buckwheat's extra collar, old letters, a small frame she had of me and Niko. And her ashes. Tiny bits of bone and teeth that rattle like ice cubes in a glass of lemonade when I shake it, trying to convince myself that it's Gina in there, that this is real.

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