ISTORIA, UTSA Satellite Space, curated by the Graduate Photography Studio at UTSA.
Graduate student curators are Julie Ledet Fremin (pictured), Joe Harjo (pictured), Beth Devillier, and Jamie Garrison.

The Graduate Photography Studio at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) curates ISTORIA: Exploration in Contemporary Narrative as part of FOTOSEPTIEMBRE USA and the Society for Photographic Education South Central Regional Conference. The exhibition showcases the various styles characterizing contemporary narrative photography. We invite the community to engage in a conversation about the medium of photography, as we expose viewers to a range of media including traditional and alternative processes, digital photography, and video art, all of which intersect with contemporary art and educational practices.

As narrative photography moves the image beyond a simple representation, each photograph in this collection stages a modern allegory. The artists chosen for ISTORIA collectively confront the symbols, words, gestures and sensations of their respective daily experiences and have created work in a context specific to their individual perspectives.

Inspired by 17th-century Dutch paintings, Julie Blackmon explores the personal narratives of family life and the search for visual monuments of sanctuary to transcend its conflicting demands of the present moment and the need for escape. Carol Golemboski, intrigued by our desperation to know the unknowable, incorporates the darkroom process into her finished work, deliberately scratching or drawing onto emulsions to magnify the talismanic, clairvoyant character she sees in tarnished, weathered objects. Nate Larson examines how contemporary culture, both secular and religious, can tamper with objectivity to blur an individual’s personal truths, calling attention to how our surroundings shape our lives. Beau Comeaux digitally manipulates color, perspective, and focus to disorient viewers while inviting them to participate within the photograph, transforming domestic and semi-domestic locales into fantasy spaces with shadowy, ominous overtones. In a unique and highly personal series, Pinky Bass relates a loved one’s struggle with cancer by running perforated photographs through a home-made music box, adding a haunting audial component to the visual experience. Blue Mitchell’s video work recaptures a child’s raw but acute understanding of a world which for adults, distracted by intellect and experience, is normally restricted to dreams.

Julie Ledet Fremin, September 2011.

Istoria exhibit at the UTSA Satellite Space.

Istoria exhibit at the UTSA Satellite Space.

Images by Thea Augustina Eck, Ann Mansolino, and Steven Rubin.

Images by Jose Velazco and Elizabeth Claffey.

Images by Kenda North and Hans Gindlesberger.

Images by Julie Blackmon.

Images by Carol Golemboski.

Images by Nate Larson and Beau Comeaux.

Image installation by Jess Schrom.

Image/Object/Sound installation by Pinky Bass.

Opening reception for the ISTORIA exhibit at the UTSA Satellite Space.

Opening reception for the ISTORIA exhibit at the UTSA Satellite Space.

Goodbye. Fotoseptiembre will miss you.