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ALUMNI FOCUS Jerry Englehart, Jr., Jim Gavenus, Craig Litten, Michael McElroy, Travis Ruse, Quenby Sheree and Lisa Stone May 25 - July 30, 2011 Artist's Talk: May 25, 6:00pm. Reception to follow.
The Alumni Focus exhibition at the Southeast Museum of Photography presents photographic works from distinguished alumni of the Southeast Center for Photographic Studies, a consortium with Daytona State College and the University of Central Florida. Each year, the Faculty Focus exhibitor selects the alumnus or alumni for a companion exhibition. This year’s faculty focus, Gary Monroe, chose to share the spotlight with seven of his prior students that work in a similar documentary style yet have branched out in many different directions. This exhibition is as much about ideas of teaching and influence as it is about getting a sense of how younger documentary photographers are looking at and reflecting upon the world around them.
Ivory Coast, 2007		Jerry Englehart, Jr. The Moments Between This collection of images are comprised of “the moments in-between the moments” from Englehart’s travels. They involve consciously selected instances when stillness or simplicity invoked an emotion. It is Englehart’s hope that these personally moving and expressive images evoke a curiosity, story or personal memory that each viewer can relate to...MORE
Untitled, 2009		Jim Gavenus Southern Accents Southern Accents is a photographic essay of the rural south, a region lacking the quality of life and education most Americans are afforded. Individually, these photos represent a series of people willing to share their world and meager livelihood. Collectively, they document a simpler life based on community, family, faith and hope, but also one of sustained oppression...MORE
Spike, 2010		Craig Litten Bike Week Craig Litten developed an interest in motorcycles even before his interest in photography unfolded. As a child, he grew up with this alluring machine: his father was somewhat obsessed with Harley-Davidsons and his family would vacation in Daytona Beach during Bike Week. Litten focused on this subject matter during and after his studies at Daytona Beach...MORE
Mumbai, 2010		Michael McElroy Water Crisis: India "With India’s population at 1.2 billion people and counting, plus internal economic migration to urban areas from the countryside, the country’s cities are bursting at the seams. Housing shortages, electricity and water cuts, traffic congestion, pollution and a lack of basic services are the reality for millions who live in the slums. I traveled to villages..." MORE
Bowling Green – 1:50pm  - November 24, 2006		Travis Ruse Commuter’s Journal Travis Ruse is a chronicler of his daily subway commute, using his camera to record a daily journal of images: the people and scenes from his Brooklyn to Manhattan commute. For more than two years Ruse used the opportunity provided by his 45-minute commute via three train lines to create a series of vivid photographs. His lens captures those at rest, reading, waiting anxiously, workers traveling in groups, or hurriedly...MORE
Three, 2010		Quenby Sheree Roller Derby: Skate Fast/Die Pretty Fishnets, spikes, dreadlocks, hair color, roller skates, friendship, lipstick, broken bones, nail polish, lace, bloody lips…This is a woman’s sport. It’s beautiful and synchronized, yet brutal. The blood is real, as are the broken bones, the fights, and the genuine handshakes after the game. Paramedics are always standing by, just in case they are needed. Mothers, office workers, homemakers, and waitresses are all participants in this...MORE
Untitled, 2009		Lisa Stone Family In the series titled Family, Lisa Stone focuses on the people closest to her, her family. Instead of documenting daily life, however, she takes a more active role as the photographer. These images are premeditated and deliberate. Even though the subject matter is personal, Stone is able to distance herself and remain objective. Rather than recording a moment, Stone has situated her family within a broader context...MORE
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION "As part of the museum’s Faculty Focus series, each presenting artist-educator is asked to curate the adjacent gallery with the works of other photographers. Since I have long wondered about the role influence plays in shaping our students’ sensibilities, I recalled graduates who work in the tradition that I do. Subsequently, I invited seven of them to show their photographs done in “documentary style,” as the legendary photographer Walker Evans termed it. I have long understood these pure and spirited photographs are most aptly considered as the illusion of documentary photography; each photograph is subjective, a product of the maker. Although we work hard to conceal that fact, in reality each image is a work of art, if not a fiction. I think it is important for a teacher to recognize the innate natures of students and then instill in them the courage to pursue that which is real to them. I also believe that much of what we do in and out of the classroom is wordless, that words and ideas may even detract from the act of creating, from photographing. The best use of discourse is exploration, just as it is with the camera. I contend that we teachers are most effective by what we produce; our ideas gain shape and meaning from our experiences and insights. We glean from being productive. I make photographs incessantly and I believe this is important for teaching, in part, because I have long held the unpopular belief that art students often learn through osmosis. We are working artists as faculty here at the Southeast Center for Photographic Studies – role models whose words have weight because our photographs are the result of experiences. A diverse lot, we have toiled and found meaning. Our photographs have form and content that is well advanced from the commonplace. I would be honored if these young photographers recognize my ideas and sensibilities in their own photographs. I would be further validated if you, the viewer, recognized those seeds taking root in their photographs. To realize that indeed my influence has informed and helped bring student visions to fruition would be very satisfying, to say the least." –Gary Monroe

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