(Pictured above: Abbey Hepner, Regenerate, 2016)

ANNUAL MEMBERS’ SHOW

JUNE 9 – JULY 29, 2017

Opening Reception + Award Ceremony with Juror: Saturday, June 10, 2017, 5 – 8pm

Closing Reception: Saturday, July 29, 2017, 5 – 8pm

(Artists are invited to speak about their work at the closing reception.)

Location: COLORADO PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTS CENTER (1070 BANNOCK ST, DENVER, CO 80204)

The Colorado Photographic Arts Center is pleased to announce its annual members’ photography exhibition juried by Rebecca Robertson, Photo Editor of PDN/Photo District News. Robertson reviewed over 380 images submitted by 77 artists and selected 23 works by 21 photographers for the exhibition. She selected an additional 15 works for inclusion in the catalog as a Special Mention subset. The exhibition is a survey of new work made by CPAC members and is intended to highlight the creative talents of CPAC’s core constituency.

EXHIBITING ARTISTS

Norman Aragones, Brenda Biondo, Raymond Bleesz, Cody Bratt, Michael Campbell, George Cavalletto, Rocio De Alba, Nicholas Fedak II, Abbey Hepner, Frederick Hodder, Kevin Hoth, Ron Johnson, Siobhan Keleher, Jim Montague, Ning Mosberger-Tang, Christopher Nathan Nelson, Stephen Podrasky, Terry Ratzlaff, Wendi Schneider, Genevieve Waller, and Mike Whiteley.

SPECIAL MENTIONS

John Bonath, Edward Bryan, Thomas Carr, George Cavalletto, Carol Dass, James Dickman, Jerrie Hurd, Ron Kachelmeier, Melissa Lynn, Suzi Moore McGregor, Billy Riesing, Robert Roth-Nelson, Breezy Sanchez, Samantha Simmons, and Frank Zurey. 

EXHIBITING ARTISTS  

SPECIAL MENTIONS  

Juror’s Statement

Today, when the power to create a faithful representation of the world belongs to just about everyone, the question of what makes a good photograph has gotten complicated. Photojournalism tells stories and commercial photography seduces, but what is the purpose of good art photography?

In Helen Levitt’s 1946 book A Way of Seeing, writer and critic James Agee used the metaphor of poetry to understand her sharp and graceful photographs of children at play, calling them “a major poetic work” consisting of images that “can best be described as lyrical photographs.” Agee couldn’t have imagined how many photographs were yet to be taken in the 21st century, overflowing the phones and apps and websites we have built to contain them. As I looked through the images that were submitted for this show, I thought about the idea of photographs as poems—visual elements of the world around us arranged in moving ways. Just as arrangements of words aren’t necessarily poems, photographs are not necessarily art, and it takes a particular spark of ambition and sensitivity—shared by everyone who submitted work to this show—to make a photograph that transcends its ordinary, mechanical origins.

The photographers here take many different approaches to making art with photography. They work with the human body, the Western landscape, nature, humor, irony, darkness, pastiche, juxtaposition, form, film, pixels, color, texture—and always light—to create images that aspire to correspond to something beyond them. Like poems, images cannot be right or wrong; they can only resonate with a particular viewer. These images resonated with me, and it was an honor to let them.

ABOUT Rebecca Robertson, Photo Editor of PDN/Photo District News

Rebecca Robertson is the Photo Editor of PDN and PDNOnline, a magazine and website for professional photographers, where she also writes the Photo of the Day blog. Previous experience includes working as the photo editor of ARTnews magazine, where she was a contributing writer on the topic of photography. In her work as an editor, she looks at a wide range of commercial, fine art, editorial and fashion photography. She has been a portfolio reviewer for FotoFest, powerHouse, ICP, Palm Springs Photo Festival and ASMP, and a judge for Critical Mass, PDN’s 30 and Emerging Photographer contests.

In addition to her work as a writer and photo editor, Rebecca has curated photography shows for UNICEF and others, and was a founding editor of the website New York Photography Diary. She has lectured at Haverford College, Moore College of Art and Ursinus College, among other institutions. She has an MFA from the School of Visual Arts and studied fine art, photography and art history at Bryn Mawr College.