From the Photo-Bodies series
A solo exhibition of photography-based mixed media
The Missing Nipple, 2019 From the series: Photo-Bodies, photography and mixed media, 12.5" x 17.7" x 0.5" inches | Click on the image to watch a short video
“The Host or the Guest?” Featuring L.MIkelle Standbridge
From the Photo-Bodies series
From July 31 - September 9, 2021
Opening Reception: July 31, 2021, from 1 PM - 5 PM
Closing Reception: September 11, 2021, from 1 PM - 5 PM
El Nido art space presented by VC Projects and curated by Victoria Chapman
1028 ½ N. Western Avenue, Los Angeles CA 90029 | By appointment only
In observance of LA County Guidelines for Covid-19, masks are required for unvaccinated guests
Doing Time; A Love Story # (numbers ranging 1 to 70 From the series, Photo-Bodies, photography-based mixed media, 3.2" to 7.8" inches
The art of L. Mikelle Standbridge (Milan) is a passionate endeavor, thoughtfully narrating personal stories about her subject’s embodiment. Varying in size and shape, her delicate one-of-a-kind pieces are derived from the reconfiguration of photographic prints, exploring a paper that the artist refers to as “pulpy, pierceable, stitchable, and flexible.” The work might have multiple layers or be hand-torn and stitched along the edges. It is not unusual to find works stacked on top of each other on a shelf or suspended with moving parts. All the while, these images are set within detailed backgrounds that explore intimacy, ensuring the connection between the subject and the maker.
Standbridge says, "I am profoundly interested in Photography and this interest informs my subject matter and presentation choices. This series, Photo-Bodies, is in part dedicated to what has probably been photography’s most astounding characteristic and that is - in the form of portraiture or a "likeness"- having the uncanny, powerful potential of alluding to the non-visible, to an emanation (such as a personality, a soul, or an aura of a person). By photographing people, especially people who have undergone alterations to their bodies or whose lives are dominated by their appearance, my body of work hovers around the question of physicality (what it might reveal, what it might cover-up)."
The Big Heart In The Little Girl, 2017, From the series Photo-Bodies, photography based mixed media, 7" x 5" x 1" inches
The title of this show, The Host or the Guest? is in the form of a question as this show is one chapter in an on-going inquiry into the role of the body vis-a-vis its immaterial presence. This overlap, this un-definable colocation, also applies to the photographer's role in reference to her subject: Whose presence is influencing or creating whom?
This is VC Project's third curatorial undertaking in Los Angeles with the artist after having met her in 2018 at Fotofever International Contemporary Art Fair Paris, France. There was an immediate enchantment with the dark and mysterious layers of her work, combined with empathy, as she honored the body in all its multiplicity. What all her works share, even as each one is an individual concept, is technical ability and dedicated refinement defined by the artist’s hand.
Wool And Womb, Swollen Bellies, 2020, From the series Photo-Bodies, photograph based mixed media, 10.2" x 13.3" x 0.4" inches
Standbridge, received a BA in Art from San Francisco State University, with two years of photography at L’Université de Paris and an MFA in Photography from the University of Chicago. Her work is in the collections of Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, France, Biblioteca Classense, Ravenna, Italy, Harold Washington College, Chicago, Illinois, Center of Photography Bombay, India, Ramakrishna Vidyapith Museum, Deoghar, India, and Jerry Fielding – curator and director of Yousuf Karsh estate. In addition, was Portfolio Winner for an exhibition invitation to The European Festival of Nude Photography, (FEPN) in Arles, France, and Festival Fotografico Europea, Milan, Italy. Furthermore, was a Finalist for Fine Art Tokyo, International Foto Awards, Tokyo, Japan, Art Photography, Lens Culture, Paris, France, and Triennale della Fotografia Italiana, Fondazione Arte Contemporanea, Venice, Italy. Standbridge is represented in Milan by Gli Eroici Furori Gallery and continues to exhibit her work in Italy, France, and the United States.
Victoria Chapman (founder of VC Projects and founder/director of El Nido Art Space)
Doing Time; A Love Story # (numbers ranging 1 to 70 From the series, Photo-Bodies, photography-based mixed media, 3.2" to 7.8" inches
Korean Aura, mixed media; inkjet pigments on Fine Art photography digital paper (100% cotton); hand-applied patina; hand-stitched, Dimensions: 16" x 19" x 0,4" inches, Editions: 1-9 + I artist proof
Veritas, mixed media; inkjet pigments on Fine Art photography digital paper (100% cotton); hand-applied patina, Dimensions: 7" x 8.6" x 1.2" inches, Editions: 1-9 + I artist proof
I am profoundly interested in photography and this interest informs my subject matter and my presentation. This series, Photo-Bodies, is in part dedicated to what has probably been photography’s most astounding characteristic—in the form of portraiture, the uncanny, powerful potential of alluding to, in visible form, an intangible, an emanation (such as a personality, a soul, an aura of a person). By photographing people, especially people who have undergone alterations to their bodies or whose lives are dominated by their appearance, my body of work hovers around the question of physicality (what it might reveal, what it might cover up).
Also intriguing to me is the way we have viewed photographs. The presentation of photography has a long history with surfaces (both with the negative and the print), from paper negatives, silver coated copper, tin, glass plates, film, and albumen paper, gelatin-silver paper, and now ink jet pigments on digital paper. This later, digital photography paper, has a strong material presence due to the 'grammage' (paper density) and the 100% cotton, pliable base. Today’s paper may be said to offer a carnal presence because it is pulpy, absorbent, flexible, scratchable, tearable, pierceable, stitchable, dyeable, waxable – all characteristics that lend themselves to a concept of "body".
As an experimental inquiry into representing embodiment, as limited editions but nevertheless one- of-a-kind photo-sculptures, the works vary in size and depth, ranging from a few centimeters to a few meters and vary equally in style, potentially being wrapped, tied up, warped, folded, or stuffed. Certain pieces are also designed to have changeable positions and interchangeable parts. All of them are very delicate and often hand stitched. Notwithstanding the fragile nature, a patina is rigorously applied, reminiscent of burnished leather, permitting the paper work to be viewed without a glass covering. This direct presence, this immediacy, this invitingly tactile quality, is a key part of the "Photo-Body" concept.
There is a muted, quasi-monochromatic palette, made up of predominantly browns, greys, and blacks with an occasional chalky pastel or velvety Pompeii red, that seems to behold as holy the crepuscular years of the medium's invention in the early 1800's. Yet, the manipulation of the materials paralleled by the subjects’ counter culture body manipulation or latest surgery, one could say there is a "retro- contemporary" feel to the work.
Photography is an impenetrable mix of solidified tradition and a constantly renewed identity.
L. Mikelle Standbridge
July 17, 2021
Before, After, And In Between no.1 and no. 2, 2019, From the series, Photo-Bodies, photography based mixed media, 15.3" x 15.3" x 1" inches
featured
CURATE LA “The Host or the Guest?” solo exhibition by L. Mikelle Standbridge
INSTALLATION SHOTS AT EL NIDO art space (CLICK ON THE IMAGE)
This episode connects us with L. Mikelle Standbridge at her studio just outside of Milan, Italy. During the talk, we discuss her solo exhibition "The Host or the Guest?" on view at El Nido art space in East Hollywood, curated by VC Projects. (Exhibition dates: July 31 - September 11th, 2021)
LEARN MORE ABOUT L. MIKELLE STANDBRIDGE
Gli Eroici Furori presents L. Mikelle Standbridge
Video by Gli Eroici Furori (Milan)
L.Mikelle Standbridge , American photographer but Italian by adoption, presents her project that has been developed around the metaphorical dialogue between the inseparability of the skin and the individual, as much as the image from its support . The prints become photographic substance through the use of supports which provide the materiality on which the photographer intervenes , modifying and sewing . So the skin - inseparable from its support / body - undergoes over time through changes and alterations , whether voluntaries like a tattoo , or necessary , as with a scar . Out of this reflection are the subjects of the prints on display . A work that aims to highlight the constant and osmotic connection that exists between the intimate emotions and those externals, socially derived . The result is "Fotocorpi" defined by the metaphor of the printed image in constant dialogue with the media . http://www.furori.it/project/tracciati/
L. Mikelle Standbridge: Photo-Bodies series, photography-based mixed media