Ellen Carey, Vintage 1980's Large Format Abstract Unique Color Photo Polaroid Photograph, 1988

Description

Untitled, Unique photograph. Center panel from larger scale installation. Shot in the 20X24 format. (this measures about 20X20 inches)
Ellen … more Untitled, Unique photograph. Center panel from larger scale installation. Shot in the 20X24 format. (this measures about 20X20 inches)
Ellen Carey, American artist and photographer.

Ellen Carey resides in Hartford, Connecticut, and teaches at the Hartford Art School. She holds a B.F.A. from the Kansas City Art Institute, Missouri, and an M.F.A. from State University of New York at Buffalo. Her photographs have been exhibited at numerous galleries and museums, including the International Center for Photography, New York and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has received many grants from her home state of Connecticut as well as the Massachusetts Council of the Arts, New Works Grant, New York State Federation for Artists Grant; and a National Endowment for the Arts Award. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of The Art Institute of Chicago; the Baltimore Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum of Arts; Chase Manhattan Bank; Coca Cola Corporation; Fogg Art Museum; George Eastman House; International Center for Photography; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.
Abstract photography, sometimes called non-objective, experimental, conceptual or concrete photography, is a means of depicting a visual image that does not have an immediate association with the object world and that has been created through the use of photographic equipment, processes or materials. Some photographers pushed the boundaries of conventional imagery by incorporating the visions of surrealism or futurism into their work. Man Ray, Maurice Tabard, André Kertész, Curtis Moffat and Filippo Masoero were some of the best known artists who produced startling imagery that questioned both reality and perspective.
Both during and after World War II photographers such as Minor White, Aaron Siskind, Henry Holmes Smith and Lotte Jacobi explored compositions of found objects in ways that demonstrated even our natural world has elements of abstraction embedded in it. Beginning in the late 1970s photographers stretched the limits of both scale and surface in what was then traditional photographic media that had to be developed in a darkroom. Inspired by the work of Moholy-Nagy, Susan Rankaitis first began embedding found images from scientific textbooks into large-scale photograms. By the 1990s a new wave of photographers were exploring the possibilities of using computers to create new ways of creating photographs. Photographers such as Thomas Ruff, Barbara Kasten, Tom Friedman, and Carel Balth were creating works that combined photography, sculpture, printmaking and computer-generated images.
Any boundaries that remained between pure artists and pure photographers were eliminated by individuals who worked exclusively in photography but produced only computer-generated images. Among the most well-known of the early 21st century generation were Gaston Bertin, Penelope Umbrico, Ellen Carey, Nicki Stager, Shirine Gill, Wolfgang Tillmans, Harvey Lloyd, and Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin.
EDUCATION

1978 M.F.A. State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY
1975 B.F.A. Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO
1970 Art Students' League, New York, NY

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Innovation/Imagination: 50 Years of Polaroid Photography 1947-1997, The Friends of Photography, Ansel Adams Center for Photography, San Francisco, CA (book/tour)
PHENOMENON, The Friends of Photography, Ansel Adams Center for Photography, San Francisco, CA
Photography's multiple roles: art, document, market, science, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago, IL (book)
Moholy Nagy and Present Company, The Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL
Beyond the Camera, Large-Scale Manipulated Photographs, ARTSPACE, New Haven, CT
The Camera I, Photographic-Self Portraits from the Audrey and Sydney Imas Collection,The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Representatives: Women Photographers from the Permanent Collection, Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Selections 6, Photokina, Polaroid Corporation, Cologne, Germany (book)
Highlights, Jayne H. Baum Gallery, New York, NY
Identities: Portraiture in Contemporary Photography, Philadelphia Arts Alliance, Philadelphia, PA
Selections 5, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France (catalogue)
Artists Portraits by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY The National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (book)\
New Surrealism, The Catskill Center for Photography, Woodstock, NY (catalogue)
Poetic Injury. the Surrealist Legacy in Postmodern Photography, The Alternative Museum, New York, NY (catalogue)
Sexuality. Expressions and Perceptions, Art City, New York, NY
Summer Selections, Castelli Uptown, New York, NY
Pace/MacGill, New York, NY
Figures: Forms and Expressions, The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (catalogue)
Painting, Pattern, Photograph, The Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA
Ellen Carey - Cindy Sherman: Photo Bus Show, CEPA and Niagara Frontier Transit, Buffalo, NY
Images of Women, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
Manipulated Polaroids, Wheelock College, Boston, MA

SELECT GRANTS
Polaroid 20"x24", Polaroid Corporation, Boston, MA and New York, NY
Massachusetts Council on the Arts, New Works Grant, Boston, MA
New York State Federation for Artists Grant (FFA), New York, NY
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Washington, D.C.
Lightworks, Syracuse, NY
Creative Artists Public Service (CAPS), New York, NY

SELECT COLLECTIONS

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
Burchfield Art Center, Buffalo, NY
Chase Manhattan Bank, New York, NY
Coca Cola Corporation, Atlanta, GA
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY
International Center of Photography (ICP), New York, NY
Lannan Foundation, Palm Beach, FL
Lightworks, Syracuse, NY
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO
Ruttenberg Foundation, Chicago, IL
Sol Lewitt Collection, Chester, CT
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, FR
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH
Dallas-Fort Worth Art Museum, TX
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY
International Center of Photography, New York, NY
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College, Chicago, IL
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO
New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT
New York Public Library, New York, NY
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL
Perez Museum, Miami, FL
Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI
Ruttenberg Foundation, Chicago, IL
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
San José Museum of Art, San José, CA
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
The Sir Elton John Photography Collection
University Art Museum, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT less