Dodge & Burn: The Photograms of Christina Price Washington

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Dodge & Burn is back with a facelift! We’ve altered the column to now allow resident guest curators to respond to and contextualize lens-based media and artists using this platform. Our first curator is Jill Frank, a photo-based artist who recently moved from Chicago to Atlanta. She will be presenting Dodge & Burn every three weeks for the next few months, so check back in to learn more about Jill Frank through her curated content!

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The Photograms of Christina Price Washington

Christina Price Washington—who has work in Suburbia, currently on view Hagedorn Foundation Gallery—is concurrently working on a different set of images that deal her “mistrust of the lens.” Christina places a piece of light sensitive photographic paper into her purse everyday, and allows her actions, objects and own touch create light-based compositions on the paper. Motivated in part by questions about the value and uniqueness of photographs, Washington said that the resulting photograms are imitating the objects in her purse.  Her process has an unusual anti-indexical relationship to the resulting composition—these works are very abstract and simultaneously feel both intimate and sterile.  Her unique photograms intersect with works by László Moholy-Nagy—or more recently, those of Walead Besthy. And while best seen in person, she has scanned them for easy viewing.

Christina Price Washington, No. 9 from the Series Twin of Lens-Based Photographs, 2013, 14 x 11 inches, silver gelatin print, courtesy of the artist.

 

Christina Price Washington, No. 17 from the Series Twin of Lens-Based Photographs, 2013, 10 x 8 inches, silver gelatin print, courtesy of the artist.

 

Christina Price Washington, No. 13 from the Series Twin of Lens-Based Photographs, 2013, 10 x 8 inches, silver gelatin print, courtesy of the artist.

 

Christina Price Washington, No. 11 from the Series Twin of Lens-Based Photographs, 2013, 10 x 8 inches, silver gelatin print, courtesy of the artist.

 

Christina Price Washington, No. 6 from the Series Twin of Lens-Based Photographs, 2013, 10 x 8 inches, silver gelatin print, courtesy of the artist.

 

Christina Price Washington, No. 4 from the Series Twin of Lens-Based Photographs, 2013, 14 x 11 inches, silver gelatin print, courtesy of the artist.

 


Christina Price Washington was born in Santa Barbara, CA and now resides in Atlanta, GA. In 1993, she received her BFA from the Atlanta College of Art, and in 2012 her MFA from Georgia State University. Washington has exhibited extensively throughout Atlanta, including at MOCA GA, Hagedorn Foundation Gallery, {Poem 88}, Eyedrum, Jennifer Schwartz Gallery and GSU. Her work reflects on the “fastidious, relentless pursuit of perfection played out in the houses and spaces,” left without any natural reference, on the edges of world cities. Washington’s lush renditions of suburban grounds and the light of empty homes reflect on both of these as objects of voyeuristic desire and of a detached techno urban coolness and emptiness that now confronts our entire culture.

Jill Frank is a visual artist working primarily in photography. In 2001, she received her BA in Photography from Bard College, and in 2008 her MFA in Studio Art from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Frank recently completed the SOMA residency in Mexico City and relocated from Chicago to Atlanta in 2011 to teach photography full-time at Georgia State University. Frank’s current projects explore the history of photographic representation by creating alternate versions of images that dominate the vernacular of Western culture. Her work has shown nationally and internationally, and recent awards include grants from The City of Chicago Community Art Assistance Program and The Kentucky Foundation for Women. Selected solo exhibitions include Contemporary Art Workshop, Chicago; Golden Gallery, Chicago; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.


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