Featured CPAC Member: Molly McCall - Colorado Photographic Arts Center

09 Aug Featured CPAC Member: Molly McCall

Posted at 10:36h in Featured Member - Past by Volunteer

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Member Since: 2017

We’re delighted to feature CPAC member Molly McCall, whose image Chance won “Best in Show” at CPAC’s 2018 Annual Members’ Show. Chance is part of her larger series, Nothing comes from Nothing, which is explored in more depth below.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in Monterey California, Molly McCall was surrounded by infamous photographers and the West Coast Landscape tradition. With a family influence in clothing, she began her creative career designing her own label and selling to numerous specialty boutiques.

McCall’s earliest influence on art making came from her great grandfather, an illustrator for the New York Times, and grandfather, a professional watercolorist in Southern California. She started painting and photography at an early age, and later attended Laguna Beach School of Art. After nearly two decades in the clothing business, Molly returned to painting and darkroom photography.

McCall’s work has been recognized with several awards, including the 2018 EMERGE Award from the Midwest Center for Photography and has appeared in several publications including Architectural Digest, Diffusion, and The Hand. Recent exhibitions across the country include the Los Angeles Center for Photography, Griffin Museum of Photography, Midwest Center for Photography, among many others. Her work will appear internationally for the first time in the 2018 Barcelona Biennale where it has been awarded with an Honorable Mention prize. She resides in Carmel Valley California with her husband Gordon and their German Shorthaired Pointers.

STATEMENT : Nothing comes from Nothing

My interest in memory lies in the exploration of the relationships between the passage of time, repetition, and loss, including reappearance and forgetting. I work with both found photography and discarded Super 8mm film to reimagine personal as well as collective memories that challenge the photographic notion of truth and teeter on the possibility of fiction. The imagery is a diverse collection of composites, recreating layers and fragments of the past similar to the way memory is created, stored and recalled. I am searching for the balance between truth and fiction and seeking to reconcile that uncertainty.

The title of this series, “Nothing comes from nothing”, is referred to in many literary sources: the Bible, Shakespeare, Classic philosophy, theatre, film, and music. These varied references include the idea that existence is an infinite succession of moments, and even with no change, there is temporal change. I am keenly interested in the altering of memory over time, and the subsequent narrative that speaks hauntingly to the present.