ALIDA FISH CONTINUUM
When I was eight years old, my grandmother gave me a Kodak Brownie box camera along with a darkroom kit for making contact prints. I started documenting family, friends, and familiar places. For years, I stayed with this kind of straightforward camera work until I simply became weary of it. Ultimately, I wanted to create images that were less realistic—more from my imagination. This led to constructing setups akin to dioramas and finding ways to work on the surface of a print. The introduction of digital imaging not only offered much more flexibility for reworking a photograph, it also facilitated new ways to print on surfaces such as rice paper, fabric, and metal. Looking back now, I can see how techniques and materials have altered the look of my work. However, I can also see how the content of the work has been affected both by our changing culture as well as by my specific personal experiences. With the images in this exhibition, a path can be traced from the early pinned and tortured flowers to the plants in environmentally compromised landscapes, to the most recent formal still lives. I have lots of new ideas simmering in my head. After all this time, working in the studio is still exhilarating—we’ll see where it goes next.
SELECTED PERMANENT COLLECTIONS The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts Delaware Art Museum The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA The Free Library of Philadelphia George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography, Rochester, NY Women In Photography International, Arcata, CA Standard Oil of Indiana The Scott Memorial Study Collection: Works on Paper by Women Artists, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA Triboro Electric Corp., Warminster, PA Morton, Lewis, King & Krieg, Knoxville, TN Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY Murray State University, Murray, KY
PINNED FLOWERS: Ektacolor Photographs 20 x 16 inches
Peony 1982
Protea 1982
Lily 1982
INSECTS AND ANIMALS Ektacolor Photographs WITH HAND-APPLIED DYES 20 x 16 inches
Red-Eyed Strutter 1989
Painted Frog 1991
Mushroom Monkey 1990
Beetle with Nautilus Hand-painted Silver Photograph 16 x 29 inches 1986
Snow Bird 1991
ALTERED IDENTITIES 20 x 16 inch Silver Photographs with Sprayed on Chromoskedasic toning
Altered Identities #22 1994
Altered Identities #14 1994
Altered Identities #23 1994
Altered Identities #24 1994
Walking With Pygmalion 20 x 26 inch Silver Photograph with Chromoskedasic toning
# 7 Diana 1999
# 11 Dancing Mother 1999
Dancing Couple 1998
# 29 Three Graces
PLANTS IN LANDSCAPE 20 x 16 inch Silver Photographs with Chromoskedasic toning
Pigeon Point Datura 2003
Good Life Bay 2003
Pigeon Point Cactus 2003
Storm Lilies 2004
Bartram’s Magnolias 2002
CABINET OF CURIOSITIES 8 x 10 inch Wet-Plate Collodion Tintypes
Cowfish 2007
Pleated Shell 2007
Seahorse 2006
OXIDIZED IMAGES Archival pigment transfer photograph on oxidized Aluminum 10 x 8 inches
Alison’s Plant 2020
Grape Hyacinths 2019
Green Leaf 2020
Dandelion Seeds 2018
Woman in Shadow 2017
Black Berry Branch 2020
VOLUNTEERS 24 X 20 inch Archival Pigment Transfer Photograph on Oxidized Aluminum Plate
Chinese Lanterns 2018
Southlands
SCHMIDT/DEAN GALLERY 1879 Old Cuthbert Road Warehouse #32 215-569-9433 schmidtdean@netzero.net www.schmidtdean.com https://www.youtube.com/user/schmidtdea ngallery