Online Group Exhibition - "Expressing the Internal: The Self beyond the Selfie” July 2022
Analog Forever Magazine is pleased to showcase 45 images in this month’s online exhibition, entitled “Expressing the Internal: The Self beyond the Selfie,” curated by writer and curator for Analog Forever Magazine, Niniane Kelley!
The curator writes:
Take a peek into most anyone's cell phone camera roll and you're likely to find dozens, if not hundreds, of images that person has made of themselves. This urge to document one's self is certainly not a new one, technological changes have simply made it easier than ever to document every aspect of our lives, from fleeting moments to monumental occasions. We have an impulse to provide evidence of our individual experience, to declare “I am me and I was here.”
But where lies the line between selfie (“Here I am at the Grand Canyon!”) and the self-portrait? With this call for entries I wanted to see how our analog community was using self-depiction as a mode of expressing their internal selves. How can we visually communicate the Freudian Ego, our personality, our emotional state, things which are intrinsically intangible. The hundreds of entries I received seemed to depict the full gamut of human experience, from alienation and melancholy to the absurd and humorous, using an impressive range of mediums and techniques.
As you peruse the gallery you might say, “Hey, where’s the person in this picture?” In my original call for entries I posed the question of if it was possible to make a self-portrait without the physical body in the image. For this exhibition I selected a few images which might be rightfully classified as still-lifes but which struck me as telling a story which introduced a sense of the artist’s physicality and psychology without the inclusion of their corporeal form. Not having any additional information outside the image to inform the viewing, I felt these images were particularly successful in visually communicating a narrative about its creator.
The process of curating this exhibit was agonizing, every progressive cut feeling more brutal, and for two main reasons. Firstly, the quality of work and the creativity that our AF family produces is staggering, you are all so talented and inspiring. Secondly, this call was so entirely personal, I have tasked myself with judging your actual person! As artists we all feel very protective of our work, we put so much of ourselves into what we create and putting it out in the world and inviting judgement can be emotionally harrowing. So often in talking with artists they refer to their work as their babies, and when offering up your actual emotional and physical self to scrutiny it feels even more personal. I thank every one of you for opening yourself up to me, it was a gift I did not take lightly.
~ Niniane Kelley
GALLERY
About the Curator
Niniane Kelley is a fine art photographer living and working in San Francisco and Lake County, California. A native of the Bay Area, she is a San Jose State University graduate, earning a BFA in Photography in 2008.
Drawn to photography for both the immediacy of the image making process and the intrinsic alchemy of the darkroom ritual, she crafts the majority of her imagery using traditional 19th century processes which give each piece its own unique character.
She teaches workshops in the Bay Area and surrounding environs. She most recently worked as a photographer and manager at San Francisco’s tintype portrait studio, Photobooth.
Connect with Niniane Kelley on her Website and on Instagram!