Thank you, Shawn!

I'm finding that one of the great things about this program is how much I am able to learn from my peers. My critique group mate Shawn Saumell  (http://www.shawnsaumell.com/wordpress/) came across this article about Eileen Quinlan, an artist who was mentioned to me during several of my critiques at the residency.

About Eileen:

"Eileen Quinlan describes herself as a still-life photographer. Born in 1972, she has become well known in recent years as one of a cohort of photographers—Walead Beshty and Liz Deschenes are notable others—who, following in the footsteps of practitioners from Moholy-Nagy to James Welling, have been disassembling the layered apparatus of photography (light, subject, optics, chemistry, bytes, the material image) and finding new means of expression."

Some tidbits that jumped out at me:

"The black-and-white Polaroid film I use produces very fragile negatives [color Polaroids have no negatives] and, despite my best efforts, they always get damaged. For a change, I decided to stress the negatives to the max—even to the point of letting the images fall apart."


"I was looking for a way to get my hand into the work, to make it more personal, more meaningful. Death is a key to this series. I lost many of the older people in my life last year—between the two of us, Cheyney and I lost three grandmothers—and I was feeling very sad. These women were our last link to the early 20th century. Calling my show at Miguel’s “Nature Morte” and titling all the images after works by artists or writers
who are buried at Père Lachaise—Star on the Forehead, for instance, was the name of a Raymond Roussel play—became a way of mourning."

Here's the article from "Art in America":

http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/features/eileen-quinlan/