Sharon Lee Hart

Sharon Lee Hart is a D.C. born fine art photographer and a professor at Florida Atlantic University. She earned an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her first monograph, Sanctuary: Portraits of Rescued Farm Animals was published in 2012. Hart’s photography and mixed media works have been exhibited throughout the U.S. and internationally.

Sharon Lee Hart's solo exhibition, According to the Sky, is currently on view until March 9, 2016 in conjunction with the Joyce Elaine Grant Exhibition at Texas Woman's University in Denton, TX. Hart was selected as the solo show award winner by April Watson, Curator of Photography The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO in 2015.

Artist’s Statement: According to the Sky

“The stars we are given. The constellations we make. That is to say, stars exist in the cosmos, but constellations are the imaginary lines we draw between them, the readings we give the sky, the stories we tell.” — Rebecca Solnit, Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics

This project is a meditation on the sea. Personal narratives are formed by filtering ideas about the sea through a variety of subjects, including mythology, astronomy and mysticism. The ocean is a link to the cosmos, a backdrop and central character. We live on a planet whose surface is mostly covered in water and in bodies that are at least half composed of water – we are physically and psychologically connected to the ocean. The photographs are made in the water and on the shore. The shoreline, our evolving human access point is where earth and sea meet. This constantly shifting border between the known and unknown can be seen as a metaphor for change. The photographs are toned to give a nod to traditional darkroom practices. Blue was chosen to reference the natural hydrological cycle and the color of the sea being in part a reflection of the sky. The images are made with a medium format film camera and a DSLR. The photographs are printed with archival inks on hand-coated hosho paper.

Interview conducted by Deedra Baker

Deedra Baker: Your series According to the Sky is inspired by the land and sea. Do you find inspiration from other sources like fellow artists, literature, experiences, etc?

Sharon Lee Hart: Absolutely! During this project, I was inspired by readings on mythology, astronomy, and mysticism. Certain essays in Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics by Rebecca Solnit resonate with me so deeply that I used a quote from the book in my project statement. During the paper coating and printing process I listened almost exclusively to the band Warpaint. Their sound set the mood and helped determine the tone of the photographs. Daydreaming while floating in the water and also being mercilessly tossed around in the waves impacted the project.

DB: How do you think about your selection of props in conjunction with the human figure? What part do they play in your “meditation on the sea?”

SLH: Many of the objects the human figures are interacting with were made or selected for their symbolism or cultural meaning. In my mind, the props elevate the figures into something magical or mythological. Props are used sparingly as I only wanted to include essential information; nothing extraneous allowed in the frame. Simplicity is part of the mediation.

DB: Describe your working methodology. What is your process for creating your photographs and decisions like square versus circular format and your choice of paper?

SLH: For the most part the idea was first, although it sometimes evolved while making the photograph. The circles reference a continuous cycle and planets. Squares are stable and represent a decisive cut from a scene. Printing is expressive and I had a very specific look in mind. After way too much experimentation with variations of paper and tones, I found that hand-applied emulsion on Hosho paper gave me the look I was after. I was drawn to the visible brush strokes and the way the ink melted into the paper.

Installation shots from According to the Sky, currently on view in conjunction with the Joyce Elaine Grant Exhibition at Texas Woman's University

DB: What is your editing process for creating a body of work and a solo exhibition?

SLH: The editing process was a bit different for this series, as I mostly knew what I wanted in advance, making the process easier than usual. For other projects, I have spent a good deal of time editing down, considering pairings, and sequence. Removing images from a series can be brutal, but satisfying. We all can get overly attached to certain images, so it is helpful to have a trusted pair of eyes look at your work and assist with editing.

The space that comes with a solo exhibition is exciting as it enables you to share your vision with an audience in a tangible way and hopefully start a dialogue. I also viewed this exhibition as an opportunity to experiment with small installations and 3D printing to give context to the photographs. Four of these installations are included in the exhibition.

DB: As a seasoned artist with a monograph and several solo exhibitions under your belt, do you have any advice for emerging photographers?

SLH: I still consider myself emerging, but am happy to share a few thoughts...

-Always select subjects that deeply resonate with you.

-Be aware of, but don’t follow trends.

-Take responsibly for the work you put out into the world.

-Experiment and allow yourself to make mistakes.

-If you are serious, you will always make time for your work. Build it into your schedule.

-Be able to place your work in historical and contemporary context.

-Allow yourself to be inspired by things outside of the art world.

-Acknowledge that no one makes work in a vacuum; we are all inspired by others.

-Be open to feedback, not everything will resonate, but when it does it will help propel your work forward.

-Don’t underestimate the amount of time and money it takes to produce, frame, package and ship work for a solo exhibition. Build in extra time for correcting mistakes and start setting aside funds as soon as possible.

-Have specific goals and a written timeline to help keep you on track.

Curator: April Watson

Priya Kambli

April Watson is Curator of Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where she has worked for seven years. She holds a BFA in graphic design from Alfred University, an MA in art history from The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and a PhD in art history from The University of Kansas, where she completed dissertation on post-WWII photographers of the American social landscape. At the Nelson-Atkins, she has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions, including Impressionist France: Visions of Nation from Le Gray to Monet, which was co-organized with Simon Kelly at the Saint Louis Art Museum; Heartland: The Photographs of Terry Evans, a career retrospective of the artist; American Soldier; About Face: Contemporary Portraiture; Thinking Photography: Five Decades at the Kansas City Art Institute; Time in the West: Photographs by Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe and Mark Ruwedel; Human/Nature: Recent European Landscape Photography; and Hide & Seek: Picturing Childhood. She is currently at work on an exhibition of photographs featuring American soldiers and military personnel, from the Civil War to the present day. She lives in Kansas City with her husband, photographer Elijah Gowin, and their two daughters.

Watson juried the 14th Annual Joyce Elaine Grant Photography Exhibition at Texas Woman's University, which opened February 11, 2015, and will be on view until March 13, 2015.

Juror Statement

In selecting works for this exhibition, I felt it was important to reflect the immense variety of creative approaches that currently define contemporary photographic practice. By orienting submissions towards a theme, I hoped to encounter works that, no matter how they were made or conceived, challenged everyday perception in unique and surprising ways. To my delight, that is precisely what occurred.

It was impossible to include as many objects as I would have liked. I feel, however, that the final selection reflects an accomplished body of works that enlarges our understanding of what is possible with respect to photographic image-making today. Included in this exhibition are a range of technical processes and conceptual approaches, granting no singular style or methodology precedence over another. Ultimately, and through many painful edits, I determined to bring works together to create a visual dialogue that (it is hoped) resonates throughout the exhibition.

New technologies and rhetorical trends have always shaped the way pictures get made, seen, shown, and discussed. What persists is an abiding curiosity for photography’s capacity to picture and present things differently than one might ordinarily see them. This exhibition celebrates that simple, yet enduring, fascination. These works took me momentarily “Out of this World,” and it is hoped that they will inspire a similar experience for others as well.

Interview conducted by Deedra Baker, Exhibition Co-Coordinator for the Joyce Elaine Grant Exhibition 

Deedra Baker: How did your graphic design and art history educational backgrounds lead you to curatorial interests in photography?

April Watson: I loved art school: it opened my eyes to new ways of thinking about creative expression, intellectual discourse, and in the most practical of terms, how to actually make things. As a graphic design major, I learned how to organize and prioritize information visually and spatially. I also took several photography classes and learned the technical and conceptual rudiments of the medium, as well as how to best present work. I always loved art history classes-even the ones that met at 8 am on cold, snowy mornings in upstate New York. I spent a semester abroad in my junior year and backpacked around Europe, visiting many of the places and masterpieces that one studies in Art History 101. That determined for me that I wanted to learn more about the history of art.

Additionally, I confirmed as an undergraduate that I was far better at writing about art than actually making it. I recall during one of my end-of-semester critique in Freshman Foundation, a very kind, very honest professor said to me after viewing my less-than-scintillating work (things into which I’d poured my heart and soul): “You know, I can see you as a gallery director or some kind of arts professional.” I think he was graciously hinting that I should think about diversifying my experience!

In hindsight, I realize this foundational experience as an undergraduate was vital as I began to think about photography in more abstract, theoretical terms in graduate school. In many ways, it keeps my curating grounded in a fundamental love of photographs as objects. Not that art school is a necessary precedent for that way of thinking and working as a curator. But for me, it planted a seed.

Linda Alterwitz

DB: Through your diverse curatorial accomplishments, which photographic genres interest you the most? What would be your dream curatorial assignment?

AW: As I often say, the history of photography, relative to other areas of curatorial expertise, is a relatively short history, so it’s good to have a strong fondness for many time periods and genres. Some scholars have devoted years of their academic and museum careers to one general subject or time period. Though I admire that level of expertise, it’s not the way I work. I can’t work that way, really: museums do not attract visitors the way they did 20-30 years ago. We need to offer a broad menu of options and approaches to subject matter: both long-term, scholarly projects and smaller shows whose themes might appeal to visitors who have no knowledge of photography’s history, but who love looking at great photographs.

On a personal level, I’ve always loved French 19th century material-my graduate advisor at the University of New Mexico was Eugenia ‘Nia’ Parry (then Eugenia Parry Janis). She and Andre Jammes produced the first major study of the key practitioners of this time period. She inspired me through her passionate lectures and brilliant insights to think deeply about what photographs meant, bringing literature, philosophy, and art history to bear on interpretation.

I also like post-WWII American “documentary-style” work, particularly photographers working during the 1960s and 1970s. The American social landscape has always fascinated me as a subject.

Honestly, I’m not sure what my dream curatorial assignment would be: I do think that an exhibition focusing on photographic practice in the 1970s in general warrants in-depth scholarly treatment, since this is the period that has shaped the current academic and curatorial landscape. It all exploded in the early seventies: the gallery scene, the market, the proliferation of graduate programs in photography in art schools, the expansion of curatorial departments in museums dedicated strictly to photography, an increase in conceptual artists who regularly used photography in their creative practices. It is an important history to document.

I also believe there is great potential in creating thoughtful exhibitions and installations that mix photography with painting, sculpture, video and installation. The exhibitions that have done this-- either projects that I have worked on or have seen elsewhere—bring a fresh appreciation of the medium by letting photography out of its medium-specific cage, so to speak. Mixing media in exhibitions can enrich our collective understanding of the artistic cross-pollination that took place during particular historical moments.

I also believe that there are certain photographers whose work certainly warrants monographic treatment. As a curator, I serve as a conduit for artists. I see my job, at least in part, is to create exhibition opportunities so that their work may be seen by as wide an audience as possible.

Garrett Hansen

DB: For the 14th Annual Joyce Elaine Grant Photography Exhibition, you set the theme: Out of this World. What influenced you to create this specific theme? How did you consider selecting work to fit within the theme?

AW: Basically, I was interested in finding work that made me want to look at it for more than five seconds, and that took me outside ordinary modes of perception. I wanted to bring together a group of photographs that were visually engaging, and that prompted me to ask the simple question: What exactly am I looking at in this picture? By selecting the theme, “Out of This World,” I thought I might encourage submissions by artists working in a variety of photographic practices: those who use alternative processes, who work with appropriation, or who make so-called straight, documentary-style photographs. Luckily, that strategy was successful. In the end, I included a bit of everything.

As I focused in on the final selection, I also thought about how pictures might relate to one another in the gallery, with the hope that a visual dialogue might evolve.

DB: What do you feel are the technological and rhetorical trends in contemporary photography? How are these trends shaping the way photographs are made, seen, shown, or discussed?

AW: We’re at another one of those exciting moments of paroxysm in the field, when academics, artists and museum curators (those terms are not mutually exclusive by any means) scramble to define the parameters of contemporary practice. They never fully agree, but in general I enjoy the ongoing debates, as I think it’s healthy for the field to keep from becoming too static.

In terms of trends, there are a few I would identify. I see many artists who are fascinated by the materiality of analog and chemical photographic processes, and explore that as a conceptual practice. People like Marco Breuer, who has been working in this manner for some time, but is just now getting widespread recognition, or Allison Rossiter, Chris McCaw, Mathew Brandt and Liz Deschenes. I also see several artists exploring the threshold between still photography and video: Bill Viola, of course has been doing this for some time, but also younger artists like Owen Kydd and Adam Magyar. And there are many artists that explore the way photographic imagery circulates on the internet and through social media.

I’d add, however, that the kind of work I tend to see in galleries, at art fairs, and in major museum exhibitions differs from the wide variety I see submitted to exhibitions such as this, or at portfolio reviews like Fotofest or Photolucida. Sometimes these worlds intersect, but not as often as one might think, given the numbers of photographers emerging from graduate programs. The market for contemporary art, particularly in places like New York City, drives certain trends in an unhealthy manner, in my opinion. There are also gallerists and dealers who genuinely care and are deeply passionate about contemporary photography, and who play an important role in bringing an artist’s work to wider attention. It can be tough to navigate the market, as both an artist and a curator. I always have to ask myself: will we look back at this work 10-20 years from now and wonder what on earth were we thinking when we acquired it for our collection? Sometimes you just can’t easily answer that question.

I believe it is important to support exhibitions like this one, which create a vital opportunity for artists to show their work. I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to curate this year’s show, which brought to my attention works I might never have seen otherwise.

Installation shots by Rachael Banks