A collection of work produced by the Light Work Artists-in-Residence and the Light Work Grant Recipients with accompanying essays. Includes the work of Pipo Nguyen-duy, Bharti Parmar, Tone Stockenström, Myra Greene, Matthew Swarts, Stephen Hughes, Alex Harsley, Scott Townsend, Wayne Barrar, Susan Lipper, and Jonathan Moller. Also included are the Light Work Grant recipients Harry Littell and Lois Barden, Mark Hemendinger, and Barry Perlus.

Contact Sheet 132: The Light Work Annual 2005

Arts & Photography

Light Work

Photography & Video

This catalogue features a collection of work produced by the Light Work Artists-in-Residence and the Light Work Grant Recipients with accompanying essays. It includes the work of Scott Conarroe, Kelli Connell, Lola Flash, Cristina Fraire, Admas Habteslasie, Deana Lawson, Paula Luttringer, John Clark Mayden, Christine Osinski, Oscar Palacio, Xaviera Simmons, Amy Stein, Krista Steinke, and Garie Waltzer. Also included are the Light Work Grant recipients Kathy Morris, Paul Pearce, and Nancy Keefe Rhodes. Essayists include Dawoud Bey, Julie Bolcer, Josh Brilliant, Leslie Rose Close, Mary Goodwin, Jessica Heckman, Mary Lee Hodgens, Jeffrey Hoone, Karen Irvine, David L. Jacobs, Allison N. Kemmerer, Stuart Krimko, Peter MacGill, Maria Moreno, John Wesley Mannion, Alison Devine Nordström, Franklin Sirmans, Alec Soth, and Spring Ulmer.

Contact Sheet 152: The Light Work Annual

<p>When Susan Worsham was just eighteen her brother took his own life after severing his spinal cord in a motorcycle accident. As a young girl she had already lost her father to a heart attack, and finally in 2004, she lost her mother as well. In the words of Worsham, "Shortly after my mother passed I came across a set of antique veterinary slides. They were some of the most interesting things that I had ever seen. I framed ninety of them in a long wooden frame resembling the shape of the slide itself. It was the first piece of art that I made after my mother died. I called the piece a watercolor because of the collection of pastel colors, but it was also a sort of poem when you got close and read the titles ... Rabbit's Lung, Fowl's Spleen, and even Human Umbilical Cord. They seemed to hold beauty and death at the same time." Worsham went on to photograph her old childhood home as well as her oldest neighbor, Margaret Daniel. Margaret is one of the last remaining threads from Worsham's childhood and was the last person to see her brother alive. She made him her homemade bread, and he finished the whole loaf before he shot himself. The story came full circle one day when Margaret brought out her dissection kit and microscope slides. She had been a biology teacher and was holding on to the same sort of slides that fascinated Worsham. Margaret's microscope and slides have since become a metaphor for Worsham's desire to look deeper into the landscape of her childhood-from the flora and fauna to the feelings, Margaret calls it "blood work.' All together, the photographs and accompaniments in Bittersweet/Bloodwork speak of the poetry of childhood, nature, discovery, love, and loss. "I can remember one particular time when I visited Margaret," says Worsham. "I looked out of her large picture window and saw what looked like a nest or hammock of small red berries draped between the winter trees. I asked Margaret what it was. She answered, 'Why, that's bittersweet. Bittersweet on Bostwick Lane.'" This catalogue includes an essay by Shane Lavalette.</p>

Contact Sheet 168: Bittersweet/Bloodwork

Susan Worsham

Shane Lavalette

Chinese artist Shen Wei uses his self-portrait series I Miss You Already as a place for self-discovery and contemplation. Each image captures a momentary experience that describes the coming together of person and place. Many of the photographs are intensely sexual. His images invite others into his solitude by quietly beckoning or openly drawing the viewer in. They tease the camera, and therefore the viewer, in various degrees. That Wei is an attractive and physically fit young Asian man plays an important part in how his work addresses desire in the context of identity and bridges cultural and sexual barriers. His overtly sexual photographs push against the boundaries of Wei's conservative Chinese upbringing, which occurred at a time when even art students did not get to study the nude body and would learn to draw the body from sculptural busts. Moving to the United States in 2000, Wei was confronted with very different societal attitudes toward the naked body and sexuality, and his response to these issues has become central to his work. It is not important to Wei that his photographs be understood in only one way, and he acknowledges that his work may be interpreted differently from country to country. He has also seen a shifting of social norms. Even in China it is now increasingly acceptable to depict the naked body, especially in art. Wei uses his series to push against cultural boundaries, but in image after image he also explores his own comfort level with expressing his sexuality. Throughout the series we observe Wei trying on one environment and identity at a time. Although the images are constructed, the emotions are authentic. We see a young man asserting himself in front of the camera and claiming his right to define himself and his sexuality. This catalogue includes an essay by Hannah Frieser.

Contact Sheet 169: I Miss You Already

Shen Wei

Hungarian artist Adam Magyar has been receiving international attention with art that explore concept of urban life. Magyar depicts the synergies of people, the cities they inhabit, and the technological support structures created to facilitate urban life. He explores the flow of time and life through multiple photography and video-based series, three of which will be presented in Syracuse. Magyar uses unconventional devices, like an industrial machine-vision camera that relies on scanning technology. Utilizing software and drivers which he programs himself, Magyar creates constructed images that capture moments in time and place that can neither be seen with the bare eye nor conventional optical cameras. The beautiful images combine the aesthetics of classic photography with a technology that redefines our understanding of linear time and singular space in a perfect blend of science and art. In his works, Magyar scrutinizes the transience of life and man's inherent urge to leave some trace behind. This catalogue includes an essay by Hannah Frieser.

Contact Sheet 170: Kontinuum

Adam Magyar