Curator Laurie Freitag: "Congratulations to Emily Alexander for placing Honorable Mention in L.A. Photo Curator's 'S'mores & Fireflies' competition. I can especially relate to this image as it conjures up the Good Humor ice cream truck that would come by my block as a child. Bells ringing as the truck drove up our block, kids would pour out of their houses with their 25c and line up for a chocolate eclair or a vanilla cone. Sometimes the truck would come around twice a day. Yussel, the ice cream man, was a star to us kids! Thanks Emily for taking me back there!"

Emily Alexander says of her work, "My work comes from the place where memory, imagination and reality intersect. A lot of my work is process based. I create imagery or installations specific for my photographs without the use of the use of digital manipulation. I specialize in large format and film photography."

www.emily-alexander.com
 Emily Alexander was born and raised in California and attended school in San Francisco to study photography. After graduation, she made a cross country trip to live in New England and, now, she lives and works in Germany.

Curator Laurie Freitag: "Congratulations to Andrea Waxler for placing honorable mention in L.A. Photo Curator's 'S'mores & Fireflies' competition with her 'Roasting' image. I was drawn to the perspective of this image with the fire whipping up; almost dangerously, and much too close to the child. Waxler has caught the child's fascination with the marshmellow and fire leading the viewer to remember that this is the one time that a child is allowed to play with fire. Although there is an adult closeby to supervise, to a child, this is a moment of transcending rules and akin to flying with the freedom of the flame."

Ms. Waxler started her career in the areas of painting, sculpting and pottery. She was the founder and Director of the Art Studio at New Hampshire College in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Graduating from University of Pittsburgh with a BA in Fine Art, interest in photography led to coursework at New Hampshire Institute of Art and New England School of Photography. Additional coursework has been completed at the Griffin Museum of Photography and the School for The Digital Arts.

Waxler's works have been shown, awarded and sold at multiple juried gallery exhibits including the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University, The Griffin Museum of Photography, PhotoPlace Gallery, LA Curator Gallery, The Cape Cod Art Association, The Darkroom Gallery, The Moose Hill Gallery, Gallery25N and the Plymouth Center for the Arts. She is a Russell Gallery Juried Artist (the gallery is located in Plymouth, MA) an Exhibiting Member of the Vermont Center for Photography in Brattleboro, VT and a Juried Member of the New Hampshire Art Association.  She was presented with the prestigious, International 10th Annual Black and White Spider Awards Nominee for three of her images.

Additionally, her photos have been published in both print and online media in magazines such as "Chronicle of the Horse" and “Smokey Blue Mountain Literary and Arts Magazine”.  

www.andreawaxler.com

Curator Laurie Freitag: "Congratulations to Matt Hostelley for placing honorable mention in L.A. Photo Curator's 'S'mores & Fireflies' competition with his 'Fumanchu' image. I originally had seen a messy face on a kid. Then I came back to the image and read the title and saw something else. The humor of the title takes the viewer to a much different place than if it was titleless. How many times have we heard from the art world that perhaps we shouldn't title our pieces? There is much to say in favor of both arguments but in this case, I think Hostelley's choice to lead us, is a good choice."
 
Matt Hostelley says of his work, "I consider myself to be a photorealist whose composition and style has modernist tendencies.  My work focuses on compositions that flatten space in an effort to create intriguing abstraction. Through photography, I attempt to subvert the generic, formulaic and insincere elements that are pervasive in popular art.  My images are an exploration of a reality that challenges prevailing sentiments about culture.  My reality is captured in artistic presentations of subject matter that contains elements that are often objectionable, overlooked, and dramatic. I present imagery that encourages the viewer to look beyond the obvious and sense the subtle; to sense what is there or not there.

Hostelley has shown his work in the following shows:

2016
Art Through the Lens, Yeiser Art Center, Paducah, KY - juror:  Sarah Stolfa
 
2015
Curvilinear, Darkroom Gallery, Essex Junction, VT- juror: Sarah Hadley
 
Photo Now, Gallery East Cuyahoga Community College, Highland Hills, OH -
juror: Unni Pulikkal
 
H2O, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO - juror: Dina Mitrani
 
Cleveland Creates, Artneo, Cleveland, OH - jurors: Helen Forbes Fields, Loren Naji, Christina Vassallo
 
2014
Western Reserve Open Photography Competition, Artists Archive of the Western Reserve, Cleveland, OH - juror: Diane Waggoner
 
Belz, Carl (juror), Studio Visit Magazine, volume 28, pp. 85-86
 
Hostelley has placed in the following competitions:

2015, Best Color Photograph - Western Reserve Open Photography Competition
2015, Honorable Mention - Cleveland Creates, Artneo

www.matt@hostileart.com
www.hostileart.com