Object Record
Images
Metadata
Artist |
Astman, Barbara |
Title |
Near So Far #5 Hibiscus |
Accession # |
023.11 |
Date |
2000 |
Medium |
Archival inks black and white print |
Dimensions |
H-13 W-26 inches |
Description |
Barabra Astman's work explores the depiction of identity and gender through a feminist lens. Astman pulls from her own experiences and often features her own body in her works. She plays with the contradiction of representing the human body as both an object and a subject, achieving this by combining analogue and digital techniques and multiple photography shots to express visual culture that can't be expressed through a single media. In a Photo Insider profile, Claire Skyes explains Astman's photographic creation process: "After the image develops, she peels apart the film, then brushes, scratches, and washes the back of the acetate surface, removing any unwanted information. Following that, she layers several of the now translucent photos together, each one informing the other through color, content, and texture. Next, she creates an image from the stacked Polaroids. Depending on the medium for the final photo, Astman chooses between three processes: a traditional 4-by-5-inch copy negative; a digital image scanned directly from the Polaroids; and/or a 4-by-5-inch negative from the scanned images. Only the scanned go directly to Photoshop for mere cleanup; negatives head for the darkroom. Finally, her Epson printer generates 200-year-rated archival prints." Barbara Astman is a photographer, sculptor, and mixed media artist born in Rochester, New York, 1950. She moved to Canada in 1970 after graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology School for American Craftsmen. In Canada, Astman studied sculpture at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) and taught at OCAD for 46 years. Astman has an extensive and prestigious solo exhibition history. She is represented in important public, corporate, and private collections including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Deutche Bank, New York; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Astman was recently awarded a 2024 Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts. |