Joli Livaudais

Anima (detail), eighteen 16" x 16" panels, total size of 96" x 48"

Aluminum, resin, and inkjet photographic print on Kozo paper

Joli Livaudais received her BA and MS in Experimental Psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington before establishing herself as a freelance commercial photographer in Dallas, Texas. Livaudais received her MFA from Louisiana Tech University in 2013, and is currently an Assistant Professor at The University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Her fine art incorporates her interest in psychology and explores the relationships between people and the constructs we use to interpret the world around us, and has been exhibited nationwide.

Animus (detail), eighteen 16" x 16" panels, total size of 96" x 48"

Aluminum, resin, and inkjet photographic print on Kozo paper

Artist Statement: Dreams and Replies

My artwork is an expression of my search for insight. The photographic compositions are inspired by my unconscious mind, through journaled dreams and free writing. They are my meditations on a universe and existence that is exquisitely beautiful, perfectly synchronized, and uncompromisingly merciless. I find that my carefully weighed conclusions about the human condition challenge me more than they provide any meaningful sense of safety, comfort, or promise of a happy ending. To exist is to struggle. In my artwork, this translates as an attention to process and labor-intensive practice. The accumulation of layers, fragmentation, deterioration, and replication are natural processes that are integral to the work and the meditation of creating it. Although the nature of the work lends it a timeless quality, I choose to use contemporary and experimentally combined materials including resin, photographic ink jet prints, aluminum foil and electrical circuits. The concepts I am exploring are primal, but my interpretation and understanding of them is anchored in today.

Observing Jonathan (1), 24" x 24" x 7"
Plexiglass, resin, photographic prints on film, and electrical wiring with lighting

Tarot XXI, 36"x36"
Gum Bichromate photographic print on brass plate

The Womb, 30" x 30" x 3"
Epoxy resin and inkjet photographs on kozo paper

The Womb (detail)

Core Sample, 14" long, 3" diameter
Resin, gold leaf, charcoal, bird skill, dye, photographic prints on kobo paper

All That I Love is comprised of over 1600 origami beetles (Installation below)
Aluminum, resin, and photographic prints on kozo paper

The Mother, Exhumed, 42"x16"x12"
Epoxy resin and inject photographs on kobo paper

The Mother, Exhumed (detail)

Installation view of Dreams and Replies, Martine Chaisson Gallery, New Orleans, LA

Installation view (2) of Dreams and Replies, Martine Chaisson Gallery, New Orleans, LA

Installation view (3) of Dreams and Replies, Martine Chaisson Gallery, New Orleans, LA

Anne Berry

Anne Berry is a photographic artist from Atlanta, Georgia. Her photographs have been exhibited and published internationally, and she has received numerous awards, including Critical Mass 2012 and 2013 Top 50. Anne is represented by the Catherine Couturier Gallery in Houston. She attended Sweet Briar College (BA) and the University of Georgia (MA). Currently Anne is working on Behind Glass, a collection of images of primates in captivity and Animalia, photogravures of animals. A limited edition book featuring work from this project is available from North Light Press.

  Project Statement: Animalia 

Animalia is a series of photogravure portraits of animals. Wassily Kandinsky teaches that the artist has the ability to “realize the inner sound of things.” I listen for this sound when I photograph animals. People have lost an essential connection to the land and to animals. I photograph animals to remind the viewer of this bond. I am always close to the animal physically, and I establish a connection with it. Capturing these images requires patience and understanding. The animal/human relationship is the cornerstone of my work, and the magic of it inspires me to photograph animals. 

I have chosen to print these images in the photogravure process. This process evokes a feeling of timelessness and produces portraits that stress the dignity and beauty of the animals:

I hope that by looking at my images the viewer will hear the inner melody of the animal, and the lyrics will ask the viewer to consider the animal’s place in the world, to do as Franz Marc instructs, to “contemplate the soul of the animal to divine its way of sight.“

Anne’s photography of animals “vehemently avoids the high resolution color aesthetic of zoological photography, opting instead for a gaze evocative of early pictorialists, who strived to render the photographic distinctly unscientific and launched the then novel medium of photography into the realm of fine art. Within Berry’s jarringly ghostly and ethereal tones, each subject reveals a soulfulness so often hidden in photographs of animals; their struggle is urgently expressionistic, spiritual, dignified, and human." -- Ellyn Ruddick-Sunstein, The Plight of Primates in Captivity, Beautiful Decay, 02/28/14

Jaime Johnson

Jaime Johnson grew up in Mississippi where the sounds of wild animals outside her window became her daily melody. Jaime received her BFA from the University of Mississippi in Imaging Arts and her MFA in Photography from Louisiana Tech University. Johnson was named a finalist for the 2014 Clarence John Laughlin award and her work has been shown nationally. Her series Untamed recently won the Grand Prize in the Maine Media Workshops international contest Character: Portraits and Stories that Reveal the Human Condition.

Untamed chronicles the intimate relationship of a feral woman and her surrounding natural environment. She collects the bones, branches, and flora of her world and treads with the animals, both dead and living. The cyanotype process shifts focus from potentially colorful landscapes and figures to patterns, textures, and the relationships of forms within the images. Discovery—both psychological and physical— is present and reveals each of us, whether human or animal, is a part of a shared experience. Untamed ultimately reflects upon the forms, the impermanence, and the interconnectedness of nature’s life.