Adrienne Azhderian-Kelly
photography
Press:
~ Washington Post
~ Style Weekly
~ news.vcu.edu
~ The Free Lance Star
Photo/Video 13
Artisphere's annual survey of local photography and video is not a look at the Washington region. All the participants in the juried selection are from the D.C.-Baltimore area, but the images show the workaday Midwest, the mountain West and far beyond: Evan Hume's stark abstractions include one made in Mexico, and Katelyn Partlow's arresting, implicitly violent vignettes seem to depict Africa. Several photographers observe places they are known for documenting: Mark Parascandola shows the bright red and orange facades of southern Spain, and George L. Smyth revisits Braddock, a declining town near Pittsburgh.
Smyth uses the bromoil technique, which yields a high-contrast, old-timey look. He's one of several artists who explore long-abandoned photographic modes. Daniel Afzal makes silvery, low-contrast portraits via the ambrotype method, which involves glass negatives; Adrienne Azhderian-Kelly employs selenium toning to give a reddish tint to her striking black-and-white shots of architectural details.
Most of the photos are cool and detached, even to the point of mystery. But Caitlin Teal Price's pictures of sunbathers have a fleshy immediacy, and Patrick McDonough actually enters the frame (although in assumed roles) in two photos from his tribute series to Mark Linkous, the late singer-songwriter. The most engaging of the videos is also personal: Barrett Jones's "40 Seconds of My Childhood" is a stop-action animation of paintings made as a kid. It's a journey into youth conducted with grown-up artfulness.
Photo/Video 13
On view through July 27
at Artisphere, 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington; 703-875-1100; www.artisphere.com
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https://news.vcu.edu/article/VCUs_Anderson_Gallery_to_offer_faculty_exhibition
Nov. 10, 1999
VCU's Anderson Gallery to offer faculty exhibition
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By Lissette Linares
Virginia Commonwealth University’s Anderson Gallery will offer an exhibition this fall, showcasing the diverse work, innovation and creativity of faculty in its acclaimed School of the Arts. The "Faculty Focus" show will open Nov. 19 at the gallery, 907 ½ W. Franklin St.
"It’s an excellent opportunity for both students and community members to see what our renowned faculty are doing, what their influences have been and how those influences translate into unique teaching styles," said Leon Roper, Anderson Gallery manager.
The exhibition was first held in 1995 when the VCU Anderson Gallery debuted "Faculty Focus" with works from 10 scholar-artists.
This year’s show will run Nov. 19-Dec. 19 and will include everything from rice paper watercolors of Richmond’s Sacred Heart Cathedral, a sculptural fashion installation piece, landscape photography and oil paintings based on the Biblical tales of Adam and Eve.
Nine VCU scholar-artists will be featured: John Hawthorne, Crafts; Carolyn Henne, Sculpture; Morris Yarowsky and Ruth Bolduan, Painting and Printmaking; Kristin Caskey, Fashion Design and Merchandising; Ben Day and Durwood Dommisse, Communication Arts and Design; Chaoyi Gao, Interior Design; and Adrienne Azhderian-Kelly, Photography and Film.
Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, call 828-1522.
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https://www.styleweekly.com/creation-story-adrienne-azhderian-kelly-photographer/
style
WEEKLY
February 26, 2003
creation story:
Adrienne Azhderian-Kelly, Photographer
What you will see: Black-and-white landscape images of wild, overgrown places where nature is reclaiming the man-made world.
Why she does not title her photographs: “I don’t want to lead the viewer as much,” she says. “Not everyone interprets them in the same way. By not titling a photograph it allows the viewer to freely evaluate the image. …
“When people look at my work, they often tell me they have a childhood memory that is sparked by something in the image. Making photographs like this offers a lot for people to identify with.”
How she became interested in photography: Azhderian-Kelly began using a camera at age 14 and instantly found she had an affinity for photography. “I started taking pictures so early, that by the time I was out of high school, I felt photography was what I really enjoyed doing,” she says. She had tried painting and drawing previously, but neither came easily to her. “Somehow, I picked up a camera and never had to work too hard at making the photographs — not compositionally, anyway,” she says.
Where she makes her photographs: The photographs in Azhderian-Kelly’s exhibition, her first solo show in Richmond, were made in the southern United States, from Virginia and North Carolina, to Alabama, Louisiana and Texas. “The climate in this area lends itself to this type of foliage of overgrowth,” she says.
When she works: In addition to running her own freelance photography business, Azhderain-Kelly teaches photography at both the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University. She usually will block off a week at a time to make her art. “It’s impossible to do this kind of photography in an afternoon,” she says. “I will block off four days, drive to a rural area and spend the week just driving around, looking and talking to people. … It’s part of what I enjoy — the process of finding these interesting places.”
Why she photographs nature: Even before she went to college, Azhderain-Kelly says she was interested in making photographs of “things left behind in nature.”
“I started going out and seeing these remnants of what was left behind in the landscape,” she says. “… Nature somehow embraced all of these objects and continued to grow. This reclaiming process I continued to see again and again. I seek it out. I find this beauty in the way vines twist around what is left and eventually consume the object. I just think they are so beautiful.”
The challenges of photographing in remote, overgrown locations: “Often locals really stop and wonder what you’re doing,” she says. “If I tell them I think it’s beautiful, they think I’m nuts.” She used to try to ask permission of property owners but was too often refused, so now she just tries to be discreet and respectful of the land she is photographing.
“Not everyone is welcoming,” she says. “It is hard for people to understand why you want to take a picture of a barn that is falling over.”
Her equipment: When she entered graduate school, Azhderian-Kelly switched from a 4×5 view camera to a smaller format Mamiya 6×7, which shoots 10 exposures to a roll. She found the smaller camera changed the nature of her work, allowing her to move closer to her subject and to work more quickly. “Setting up a view camera in these settings is very cumbersome,” she says. “Some of these places are a little dangerous. … you need to get in there, make the photograph and get out.” — Jessica Ronky Haddad
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The Free Lance-Star FREDERICKSBURG, VIRGINIA
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25.1994
