PENUMBRA WORKSPACE PROGRAM | US | 2020
WHITNEY HUBBS (ALFRED, NEW YORK)
Whitney Hubbs’ dynamic and heady photographs bring together elements of performance, literature, and sculpture, into a practice of photography addressing issues of feminism, drama, and the narrative. Since 2019, Hubbs has made many photographic self-portraits, which she plans to continue working on during her time at the Penumbra Foundation, in readiness for a book to be published in 2021. As a jury, we were enthused by Hubbs’ approach to making variants of her body and selfhood visible through the lens, and by her desire to contextualize these images in relation to nature and current affairs.
–Odette England (Artist & Educator, Member of the 2020 Jury).
Image © Whitney Hubbs. Courtesy of the artist.
“[… ] These pictures are degradation staged as eroticism (and vice versa) and open up to a wealth of binaries in the attraction/ repulsion mode, a type of animal feeling drawn tight against conceptual thinking. These photographic performances are long winters, aging, humiliation, family, illness, death, loneliness, resistance, joy, humor, friendship, a teaching life upstate, and formalism. [ …]”
Whitney Hubbs was born and raised in Southern California with a brief stint in Portland, Oregon, Whitney Hubbs was involved in the punk rock riot grrrl community from a young age, where she made fanzines, organized art shows, participated in performances and worked as an activist. She later received her BFA from the California College of Arts in 2005 and an MFA at UCLA in 2009. She is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Alfred University. Hubbs is currently represented by M+B Gallery in Los Angeles and Situations Gallery in New York City. She currently lives in New York state.
