CHRISTINE ELFMAN

Christine Elfman makes photographs that engage paradoxes of the medium including stillness and change, clarity and mystery, intention and the unforeseen.  She uses a wide range of photographic processes in which the subject often acts as its own medium to represent itself while refusing to be captured.  These slow processes and their resulting photographs question expectations of control and stability by emphasizing what remains unknown or invisible of the subject.  Many of these high-fidelity photographs are ephemeral and refuse to be fixed.  They propose that photographs are living images, constantly changing in meaning and material at various rates.  When these images are lost or disappear, they open up space for imagining. 

Elfman’s work has been shown widely in solo and group exhibitions including Houston Center for Photography, Texas; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse; Oigall Projects, Australia; Penumbra Foundation, New York; TILT Center for the Contemporary Image; Philadelphia; University of the Arts; Philadelphia; Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco; and EUQINOM Gallery, San Francisco which represents her work.  Her photographs have appeared in publications such as BOMB Magazine, 1000words, The San Francisco Chronicle, Photograph Magazine, and Der Greif. She has been awarded a Light Work Grant in Photography, San Francisco Artist Award, and residencies at the Penumbra Foundation, Cape Cod National Seashore, and Saltonstall Foundation. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts, and BFA from Cornell University. Elfman has taught at San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, Cornell University, Bowdoin College, International Center for Photography, Wells College, and currently teaches at Ithaca College.

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BOMB MAGAZINE : Kim Beil

48 HILLS : Tamara Suarez Porras

Other Press