Ellen Carey

Ellen Carey
Born1952
New York City, New York, US
EducationState University of New York at Buffalo, Kansas City Art Institute
Known forPhotography, Conceptual art
AwardsNational Endowment for the Arts, Polaroid Artists Support Program
WebsiteEllen Carey
Ellen Carey, Self-Portrait, Polaroid 20 x 24 color positive print, 24" x 20" (image)/34" x 22" (object), 1986. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art collection.

Ellen Carey (born 1952) is an American artist known for conceptual photography exploring non-traditional approaches involving process, exposure, and paper.[1][2][3] Her work has ranged from painted and multiple-exposure, Polaroid 20 x 24, Neo-Geo self-portraits beginning in the late 1970s to cameraless, abstract photograms and minimal Polaroid images from the 1990s onward, which critics often compare to color-field painting.[4][5][6] Carey's sixty one-person exhibitions have been presented at museums, such as the Amon Carter Museum of American Art,[7] International Center of Photography (ICP)[4] and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art,[8] alternative spaces such as Hallwalls[9] and Real Art Ways,[10] and many commercial galleries.[11] Her work is in numerous museum collections, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[12] Whitney Museum of American Art,[13] Los Angeles County Museum of Art,[14] Centre Pompidou,[15] and Smithsonian American Art Museum.[16] In 2019, she was named one of the Royal Photographic Society (London) "Hundred Heroines", recognizing leading women photographers worldwide.[17][18][11] Los Angeles Times critic Leah Ollman describes her photography as "inventive, physically involving, process-oriented work" and her recent photograms as "performative sculptures enacted in the gestational space of the darkroom" whose pure hues, shadows and color shifts deliver "optical buzz and conceptual bang".[1] New York Times critic William Zimmer wrote that her work "aspires to be nothing less than a reinvention, or at least a reconsideration, of the roots or the essence of photography."[2] In addition to her art career, Carey has also been a longtime educator at the Hartford Art School and a writer and researcher on the history of photography.[19][20][21]

  1. ^ a b Ollman, Leah. "Ellen Carey's photograms turn plain paper into a topographic head trip," Archived 2019-04-14 at the Wayback Machine Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2017. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  2. ^ a b Zimmer, William. "A Family Album of Empty Pictures," The New York Times, December 10, 2000. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  3. ^ Fleischer, Donna. "The Black Swans of Ellen Carey: Of Necessary Poetic Realities," Let There Be Light: The Black Swans of Ellen Carey, Willimantic, CT: Eastern Connecticut State University Akus Gallery, 2014.
  4. ^ a b Westfall, Stephen. "Ellen Carey at ICP and Simon Cerigo," Art in America, November 1987, p. 181.
  5. ^ Schwabsky, Barry. "Ellen Carey, Ricco/Maresca Gallery," Archived 2019-07-09 at the Wayback Machine Artforum, November 1998. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  6. ^ Hagen, Charles. "Art in Review, Ellen Carey," The New York Times, December 23, 1994. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  7. ^ Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Mirrors of Chance: Photograms by Ellen Carey Archived 2019-07-09 at the Wayback Machine, Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 2017. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  8. ^ Rosoff, Patricia. "A Fresh Look at the Mystery of Photography," Hartford Advocate, December 9, 2004.
  9. ^ Kino, Carol. "Renaissance in an Industrial Shadow," The New York Times, May 2, 2012. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  10. ^ Rexer, Lyle. "Ellen Carey at Real Art Ways," Art in America, June 2001.
  11. ^ a b Akus Gallery, Eastern Connecticut State University. "Biography," Let There Be Light: The Black Swans of Ellen Carey, Willimantic, CT: Eastern Connecticut State University Akus Gallery, 2014.
  12. ^ Metropolitan Museum of Art. Untitled (Self-Portrait), 1987, Ellen Carey, Collection. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  13. ^ Whitney Museum of American Art. "Ellen Carey," Archived 2019-04-07 at the Wayback Machine Artists. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  14. ^ Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Ellen Carey," Archived 2019-04-07 at the Wayback Machine Collections. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  15. ^ Centre Pompidou. "Ellen Carey," Archived 2017-03-20 at the Wayback Machine Artists. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  16. ^ Smithsonian American Art Museum. "Ellen Carey," Archived 2019-04-07 at the Wayback Machine Artists. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  17. ^ The Royal Photographic Society. "Ellen Carey," Archived 2019-07-09 at the Wayback Machine Hundred Heroines. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  18. ^ Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. "Warhol Foundation Announces Spring 2017 Grant Recipients,". Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  19. ^ Hartford Art School. Ellen Carey Archived 2019-07-09 at the Wayback Machine, Directory. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  20. ^ Carey, Ellen. "Color Me Real," in Sol LeWitt: 100 Views Archived 2016-02-23 at the Wayback Machine (Susan Cross, Denise Markonish eds.), New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  21. ^ Carey, Ellen. "At Play with Man Ray," Aperture, Fall 2011.