We are pleased to announce the selected artist for

THE 2025 members-only Photogravure portfolio opportunity

Selected Artist: Krista Svalbonas

Finalists: Andreas Rentsch and Lieh Sugai

Images © Krista Svalbonas

This fall, Penumbra members were invited to submit their portfolios for a chance to have their work printed in copper-plate photogravure by Miguel Counahan. The invited guest juror for this opportunity was Virginia Heckert. ⁠

We are delighted to announce the selected artist is Krista Svalbonas!⁠

In choosing the work, Virginia Heckert stated:

It was a pleasure to serve as the juror for this second edition of Penumbra’s Photogravure Portfolio opportunity. I was greatly impressed by the quality and range of the submissions, from which I selected Krista Svalbonas’ multi-layered project, "Echoes of Resistance".

I was immediately drawn to the dreamlike quality of her depictions of forests and was further intrigued that her subtle images were originally printed in the anthotype process using native plant pigments foraged from the sites she photographed. The forests are sites of partisan resistance during the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States following World War II, which Svalbonas sees as symbols of struggle, survival, and, ultimately, resilience.

We will be posting updates on the progress of the portfolio, so keep an eye out for more process shots on our Instagram @penumbrafoundation.

Considered to be one of the most exquisite and intensive photomechanical processes, printing photogravure is no small feat. Photogravure prints are made by exposing a photographic image onto UV-sensitized carbon tissue, which is transferred to a copper plate. The plate then goes through an aquatint process using powdered resin and acids and, finally, is inked and printed.

The final portfolio will consist of seven 5 x 7” photogravure prints on 11 x 14” paper, in an edition of 7.

*Only current members are eligible to submit their work. If you aren’t currently a member, renew or sign up today!*

Click here to view the portfolio of Ruth Lauer Manenti’s work made from this call in 2023.

About the Artist:

Krista Svalbonas holds a BFA in Photography and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies. Her work has been exhibited at prestigious venues, including Paris Photo, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Spartanburg Art Museum in South Carolina, Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston, Klompching Gallery, and ISE Cultural Foundation in New York. Her pieces are included in private collections and public institutions such as LACMA in Los Angeles, the Cesis Art Museum in Latvia, the Gregg Museum of Art and Design in North Carolina, and the Woodmere Art Museum and Temple University in Philadelphia.

Svalbonas has received numerous awards, including the Center for Photographic Art Artist Grant (2022), the Baumanis Creative Projects Grant (2020), the Rhonda Wilson Award (2017), the Puffin Foundation Grant (2016), and a Bemis Fellowship (2015). Recently, she held solo exhibitions of her series "Displacement" at the Copenhagen Photography Festival in Denmark, the Tallinn City Museum in Estonia, the Museum of Textile and Industry in Augsburg, Germany, the Kazys Varnelis Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania, and the Janina Monkute Marks Museum in Kedainiai, Lithuania. She is an associate professor of photography at St. Joseph’s University and resides in Philadelphia, where she continues her work.

kristasvalbonas.com

About the Printer:

Miguel Counahan (b. 1976, Mexico) is an artist and printer. Blending abstraction and tradition, Counahan considers depictions of the Mexican landscape, using historical photographic processes to look at the core tenets of photography in Mexico. He has exhibited his work individually and collectively; in Mexico, Ireland, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. He was awarded the XVI National Prize for Engraving, and his work is held in the National Engraving Museum and the José Guadalupe Posada Museum collections. In addition, he founded Zopilote studio, dedicated to large-format printmaking techniques and historical photographic processes. 

About the Juror:

Virginia Heckert joined the J. Paul Getty Museum as a curator of photographs in 2005. She has organized monographic exhibitions on Bernd and Hilla Becher, Mario Giacomelli, Irving Penn, Ed Ruscha, and August Sander from the permanent collection, as well as the exhibitions Light, Paper, Process: Reinventing Photography (2015) and Cut! Paper Play in Contemporary Photography (2018), which addressed contemporary approaches to the materiality of photography.

She is interested in photographs as objects, not just as images—what is their presence on the wall or on the printed page?—and responds most favorably to work created with a camera, in the darkroom, or with photochemical means, rather than primarily on the computer.

Questions or concerns? Please reach out to our Membership Coordinator:
chloe@penumbrafoundation.org