Les Rencontres d'Arles Rencontres d'Arles: expositions, stages photo /exhibitions, photo workshops.

I cannot deny the influence photographing dead bodies and crime scenes for six years had on the way that I approached photographing my born-again Christian family. These photographs similarly approach the subject-matter of my family with detachment of clinical observation. I am attracted to the already existing pristine, saccharine pastel interiors of the upper-middle-class home. I work with large format cameras and professional lighting to capture as much detail as possible in the settings as well as the details of a person’s face. With the photographs in Left Behind I was interested in how religious values seep into everyday routine activities. The title Left Behind refers to those lives that go ‘unsaved’ in terms of my family’s beliefs and to remnants that provide evidence of a life after someone passes away.

In Pause I use a similar stylistic and conceptual approach in making the images. However, this time I was focusing on the relationship between father and daughter. I was still interested in the candy colours and still perfection. I became even more interested in the perspective forcing the viewer to be a more active participant in the seemingly mundane moments which shape our lives. There are some very new images in which I spent five months on a small Minnesota college campus photographing college life. I was interested in the outside influence of friends and the heightened sense of touch.

Angela Strassheim

www.marvelligallery.com

She is represented by Marvelli Gallery, New York.

Angela Strassheim

Born in 1969 in Bloomfield, Iowa. Lives and works between New York City and Minneapolis.

She received my BFA. from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1995. Immediately following, Angela moved to Miami to pursue a career in forensic photography. After completing a 10-month preceptorship program she took a job as the head forensic photographer at the Division of Forensic Science in Richmond (Virginia). She worked part-time for three years in New York City for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. She earned my MFA in photography from Yale University in 2003.

Angela Strassheim have had two solo exhibitions in New York at Marvelli Gallery: Left Behind (2005) and Pause (2006). Also in 2006 she received several grants including the Jerome, McKnight Photography, and Bush Fellowship. She was selected to exhibit in the 2006 Whitney Biennial Exhibition Day for Night. Last year she had her first solo museum show at the Faulconer Gallery at Grinnell College in Iowa for the series Left Behind. Her first monograph was published for that exhibition and was curated by Daniel Strong with text by Jean Dykstra. In 2007 she had an exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute as part of their new acquisitions. In 2008 she is in a large group show World’s Apart at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Angela Strassheim’s photographs have been published in many magazines including Exit, Contemporary, and Vice. She has also been published in several books including reGeneration: 50 photographers of tomorrow, The Elton John Collection 2007, Traces and Omens.

EXHIBITIONS