PENUMBRA WORKSPACE PROGRAM | US | 2020
CHRISTINE ELFMAN (Ithaca, New York)
Christine Elfman's practice deploys contrasting historical photographic processes (anthotypes and silver gelatin) to interweave categorical genres like still-life and landscape towards constellational groupings that together explore themes of time, death, repetition and ephemerality—perennial conundrums to the medium itself. The jury was struck by Elfman’s thoughtful approach to her subjects, transforming them into elegant pictorial puzzles. She seems well poised to take advantage of the facilities, tools, and the community network provided by the Penumbra residency to further these investigations.
–Arthur Ou (Artist & Educator, Member of the 2020 Jury).
Image © Christine Elfman. Penumbra Foundation.
“[… ] Many of my subjects are plaster casts of statues, a copy of a copy of a copy, with exacting indexicality. These statues are printed human life-size, so the viewer might imagine them as people that have been petrified by the camera, as if they were punished for nostalgia. On the surface, these photographs appear conventional, however all of this conservatism is complicated by the fact that the images are gradually disappearing. [ …]”
Christine Elfman is a visual artist who makes photographs about and through the process of fading. She makes pictures out of their own disappearance, to see how the desire for pictorial permanence gives way to change and the invisible. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts, BFA from Cornell University. Her work has recently been exhibited at Zona Maco in Mexico City; Philadelphia Photo Arts Center; Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College; University of the Arts, Philadelphia; Photofairs San Francisco; and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco. Awards and fellowships include a Light Work Grant in Photography, San Francisco Artist Award, Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship, and Constance Saltonstall Foundation Residency. Her work has appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Photograph Magazine, Der Greif, Humble Arts Foundation, SF Weekly, and The Photo Review. She has taught photography at Cornell University, San Francisco Art Institute, Foothill College, California College of the Arts, and UC Berkeley. She is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and lives in upstate NY. She is represented by Euqinom Gallery, San Francisco.
