Raissa Venables
Encyclopedia
The photographs of New Yorker Raїssa Venables portray distorted rooms with intoxicating colours in a surreal manner. Despite the absence of people in her photographs, we still feel their souls in the rooms. Although her work is contemporary, involving the engagement of the latest technology, Venables is influenced by important artistic innovations in history. This includes the usage of perspectives and colours of the classical Renaissance, the Expressionist exploration of the relationship between colours and emotions, and the Cubist experimentation of depicting an object in multiple viewpoints on canvas. The result is a mesmerizing impact Venables’s photographs have on us the viewers, allowing us to imagine the dreams, nightmares, and events that took place in those spaces.
, U.S.A.
. She has roots from Italy
on her maternal grandmother’s side and Irish
roots on her other grandmother’s side. Thus from an early age, Venables was introduced and exposed to the canons of European art. In 1993, Venables attended the Arts Student’s League
in New York
. During her 4-year matriculation, she concentrated on the Anatomy for Life Drawing
. Venables developed an understanding of the system of proportion through drawing, which was a fundamental part of an artist curriculum since the Renaissance
time. This would play a crucial role in her future photography work.
Venables continued her studies at the Kansas City Art Institute
in Missouri
, USA, where she received a BFA
in Photography and Ceramic Sculpture in 1999. Studying these two medium inadvertently led Venables to merge the principles of each medium in her work. For Venables, ceramic sculpting creates an enclosed space where things happening inside are separated from the outside world. This is one of the several underlying themes that Venables incorporates in her photographic work.
Venables pursued a master’s degree in her preferred medium, photography, at the Milton Avery Graduate School of Arts at Bard College
. She received an MFA
in Photography in 2002.
Venables has also completed several residencies, including one at the Galerie SPHN in Berlin
and one with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York.
Her photographic works shows that she is as sensitive and spatially aware as an architect. They deal with planar relationship, passage of time, motion, and perceptual fields, blurring the realm of the real world with the imagined one. The viewers ends up experiencing different sensory delights as well as the unconscious memories we have in different spaces, such as the those seen in her works.
Although Venables does not start a photographic project by looking at the works of specific artists, she acknowledges the influence of different artistic movements. Like most photographers, Venables pay close attention to the history of painting in order to understand the compositional structure, colour selection, and manipulation of the pictorial space. She is deeply influenced by Early Renaissance Flemish
painters like Jan van Eyck
, Roger van der Weyden
and Robert Campin
, particularly with their usage of colour and lighting in their works. Venables’ work is also influenced by the neo-cubistic approach to splitting and dissolving an object or space before reassembling them together. By breaking the laws of optics, Venables creates a new freedom in the compositional arrangement. Curators make the comparison of Venables’ work with thematic perspective found in Medieval art
, in which objects are arranged in accordance to their spiritual values as oppose to their natural ones.
Dr. Matthias Harder, Director of the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, wrote about the artist’s reason for taking this approach: “Venables’ real intention is to open up unfamiliar perspectives and to transform real spaces into imaginary ones with realistic traits.” The artist creates surrealistic, digitally composed images of everyday and sacred spaces with no people in it, which allows us to observe how we mark our environment and vice versa. She believes that by showing a space void of people, the viewers can focus on the space itself, the life of an environment, and how this space is being used. The artist places us in private intimate spaces to evoke the unconscious memories
and emotions we have with them. This is a daring approach to exploring human psyche and its relationship with the external surroundings. Venables is compared to Louise Bourgeois
, Lee Bontecou
, and Cindy Sherman
for the similar themes they explore.
Venables’ work has also been often compared to Alfred Hitchcock
, Stanley Kubrick
, or David Lynch
, particularly with her manipulation of perception, construction, and setting of the photographic works. Despite the places being familiar, viewers are often left feeling dizzy and claustrophobic when looking at the photographs. The rooms seem to be alive and anthropomorphic, as the artist aptly describes.
Light plays a significant role in the overall effect of the photographs on the viewers. Venables uses only natural lighting because it accurately reflects the persona of the space. Her photographic technique requires taking pictures of multiple perspectives and with long exposures. Thus the photographs inadvertently records the passage of time, which intensifies the metaphysical characteristic of the space.
She achieves that by exploring different architectural interiors, from church and bedroom to camping tent and elevator. How she decides which spaces to visit involves both conceptual thinking and intuitive process. Once she finds a location that she wants to work with, Venables goes back with her camera and takes pictures from different angles. Venables is always aware of how her view of the room changes as she moves around. By taking pictures of all possible angles, Venables has a more intimate understanding of the three-dimensional space she is in. She successfully conveys this awareness in her final production.
Venables shoots with film camera instead of digital, because digital camera simplifies the colours. Venables wanted colour to be a seductive element that invites the viewer into the image. She creates a psychedelic
effect by using high-saturation colours.
After taking multiple photographs, Venables prints the contact print
s, cut them up, then physically tape them together. She then scans each negative into the computer and begins the digital collaging process, fusing the separate images into a single image. This step requires the most work, with the shortest time the artist required to complete being one week. The result is a reality distorted into surreal images with an Alice-in-the-Wonderland element to it. The artist’s process of making these images can be compared to the process of a film sequence.
All That Glitters, Galerie WAGNER + PARTNER, Berlin, Germany
Raïssa Venables Fotografie, Galerie Rothamel, Frankfurt Am Main, Germany
In the Guest House, Roswell Museum And Art Center, Roswell, New Mexico, USA
Raïssa Venables, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Germany
Raïssa Venables, Städtische Galerie Waldkraiburg, Germany
One step beyond Reality-Positionen zeitgenössischer Fotokunst, Galerie WAGNER + PARTNER, Berlin, Germany
Real: Selections from the Collection of the DZ Bank, Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany
Photos and Phantasy: Selections from The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Carnegie Art Museum, USA
Full Circle: Ten Years of Radius, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut, USA
Frozen Moments, Galerie Christa Burger, Munich, Germany
Real: Photographs from the Collection of the DZ Bank. Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2010.
Venables, Raïssa. Raïssa Venables. Ostfildern-Ruit, Deutschland: Hatje Cantz, 2006.
Kunsthalle in Emden, Emden, Germany
Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany
The Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Roswell, New Mexico, USA
The Progressive Collection, Mayfield Village, Ohio, USA
Weisman Foundation, Los Angeles, USA
DZ-Bank, Frankfurt, Germany
Sammlung Knauthe, Berlin, Germany
UBS, Switzerland
Background and Education
Raïssa Venables was born in 1977 in New Paltz, in the state of New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, U.S.A.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. She has roots from Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
on her maternal grandmother’s side and Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
roots on her other grandmother’s side. Thus from an early age, Venables was introduced and exposed to the canons of European art. In 1993, Venables attended the Arts Student’s League
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. During her 4-year matriculation, she concentrated on the Anatomy for Life Drawing
Figure drawing
In art, a figure drawing is a study of the human form in its various shapes and body postures - sitting, standing or even sleeping. It is a study or stylized depiction of the human form, with the line and form of the human figure as the primary objective, rather than the subject person. It is a...
. Venables developed an understanding of the system of proportion through drawing, which was a fundamental part of an artist curriculum since the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
time. This would play a crucial role in her future photography work.
Venables continued her studies at the Kansas City Art Institute
Kansas City Art Institute
The Kansas City Art Institute is a private, independent, four-year college of fine arts and design founded in 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri....
in Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, USA, where she received a BFA
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
in Photography and Ceramic Sculpture in 1999. Studying these two medium inadvertently led Venables to merge the principles of each medium in her work. For Venables, ceramic sculpting creates an enclosed space where things happening inside are separated from the outside world. This is one of the several underlying themes that Venables incorporates in her photographic work.
Venables pursued a master’s degree in her preferred medium, photography, at the Milton Avery Graduate School of Arts at Bard College
Bard College
Bard College, founded in 1860 as "St. Stephen's College", is a small four-year liberal arts college located in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.-Location:...
. She received an MFA
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
in Photography in 2002.
Venables has also completed several residencies, including one at the Galerie SPHN in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and one with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York.
Philosophy and Style
Venables’ exposure to European traditions as well as trainings at various academic institutions resulted in the shaping of her philosophy and style. While Venables was a student at Bard, she discovered her artistic style when she revisited the house of a childhood friend who was an older woman that had died. Venables had magical memories of the house and everything in the house, including the smell and sound, remained exactly the same as when she was a child. Although the friend, an artist as well, was not physically present, the way she decorated her house reflected her artwork and herself. Thus taking photographs of the house from different angles are portraits of the friend and of Venables’ time revisiting her world. Her goal was to connect her memories with the present physical space. This was the defining style of Venables’ future work.Her photographic works shows that she is as sensitive and spatially aware as an architect. They deal with planar relationship, passage of time, motion, and perceptual fields, blurring the realm of the real world with the imagined one. The viewers ends up experiencing different sensory delights as well as the unconscious memories we have in different spaces, such as the those seen in her works.
Although Venables does not start a photographic project by looking at the works of specific artists, she acknowledges the influence of different artistic movements. Like most photographers, Venables pay close attention to the history of painting in order to understand the compositional structure, colour selection, and manipulation of the pictorial space. She is deeply influenced by Early Renaissance Flemish
Early Renaissance painting
Renaissance art is the painting, sculpture and decorative arts of that period of European history known as the Renaissance, emerging as a distinct style in Italy in about 1400, in parallel with developments which occurred in philosophy, literature, music and science...
painters like Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....
, Roger van der Weyden
Roger van der Weyden
Rogier van der Weyden or Rogier de le Pasture was an Early Flemish painter. His surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces and commissioned single and diptych portraits. Although his life was generally uneventful, he was highly successful and internationally famous in his...
and Robert Campin
Robert Campin
Robert Campin , now usually identified as the artist known as the Master of Flémalle, is usually considered the first great master of Early Netherlandish painting...
, particularly with their usage of colour and lighting in their works. Venables’ work is also influenced by the neo-cubistic approach to splitting and dissolving an object or space before reassembling them together. By breaking the laws of optics, Venables creates a new freedom in the compositional arrangement. Curators make the comparison of Venables’ work with thematic perspective found in Medieval art
Medieval art
The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, and at times the Middle East and North Africa...
, in which objects are arranged in accordance to their spiritual values as oppose to their natural ones.
Dr. Matthias Harder, Director of the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, wrote about the artist’s reason for taking this approach: “Venables’ real intention is to open up unfamiliar perspectives and to transform real spaces into imaginary ones with realistic traits.” The artist creates surrealistic, digitally composed images of everyday and sacred spaces with no people in it, which allows us to observe how we mark our environment and vice versa. She believes that by showing a space void of people, the viewers can focus on the space itself, the life of an environment, and how this space is being used. The artist places us in private intimate spaces to evoke the unconscious memories
Unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is a term coined by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
and emotions we have with them. This is a daring approach to exploring human psyche and its relationship with the external surroundings. Venables is compared to Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois , was a renowned French-American artist and sculptor, best known for her contributions to both modern and contemporary art, and for her spider structures, titled Maman, which resulted in her being nicknamed the Spiderwoman...
, Lee Bontecou
Lee Bontecou
Lee Bontecou is an American artist who was born 15 January 1931 in Providence, Rhode Island. She attended the Art Students League of New York from 1952 to 1955, where she studied with the sculptor William Zorach. She received a Fulbright scholarship to study in Rome in 1957-1958 and the Louis...
, and Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
for the similar themes they explore.
Venables’ work has also been often compared to Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
, Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, or David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
, particularly with her manipulation of perception, construction, and setting of the photographic works. Despite the places being familiar, viewers are often left feeling dizzy and claustrophobic when looking at the photographs. The rooms seem to be alive and anthropomorphic, as the artist aptly describes.
Light plays a significant role in the overall effect of the photographs on the viewers. Venables uses only natural lighting because it accurately reflects the persona of the space. Her photographic technique requires taking pictures of multiple perspectives and with long exposures. Thus the photographs inadvertently records the passage of time, which intensifies the metaphysical characteristic of the space.
Technique and Procedure
The final works of art we see is a result of a long procedure that involves employing the latest camera and computer technologies. Venables is willing to go through the process because she wants her “photographs to convey the effort of feeling a space and just not be a documentation of the room.”She achieves that by exploring different architectural interiors, from church and bedroom to camping tent and elevator. How she decides which spaces to visit involves both conceptual thinking and intuitive process. Once she finds a location that she wants to work with, Venables goes back with her camera and takes pictures from different angles. Venables is always aware of how her view of the room changes as she moves around. By taking pictures of all possible angles, Venables has a more intimate understanding of the three-dimensional space she is in. She successfully conveys this awareness in her final production.
Venables shoots with film camera instead of digital, because digital camera simplifies the colours. Venables wanted colour to be a seductive element that invites the viewer into the image. She creates a psychedelic
Psychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
effect by using high-saturation colours.
After taking multiple photographs, Venables prints the contact print
Contact print
A contact print is a photographic image produced from film; sometimes from a film negative, and sometimes from a film positive. The defining characteristic of a contact print is that the photographic result is made by exposing through the film negative or positive, onto a light sensitive material...
s, cut them up, then physically tape them together. She then scans each negative into the computer and begins the digital collaging process, fusing the separate images into a single image. This step requires the most work, with the shortest time the artist required to complete being one week. The result is a reality distorted into surreal images with an Alice-in-the-Wonderland element to it. The artist’s process of making these images can be compared to the process of a film sequence.
2010
Raissa Venables, B.A.T. Campus Gallery, Bayreuth, GermanyAll That Glitters, Galerie WAGNER + PARTNER, Berlin, Germany
2009
Distorted Places, Klaudia Marr Gallery, Santa Fe, New MexicoRaïssa Venables Fotografie, Galerie Rothamel, Frankfurt Am Main, Germany
2007
Raïssa Venables, Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim, Neuenhaus, GermanyIn the Guest House, Roswell Museum And Art Center, Roswell, New Mexico, USA
Raïssa Venables, Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Germany
Raïssa Venables, Städtische Galerie Waldkraiburg, Germany
2010
Realism: The Adventure of Reality, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich, Germany2009
The Inner Eye: Interiors of Contemporary Art, Kunsthalle Tübingen, GermanyOne step beyond Reality-Positionen zeitgenössischer Fotokunst, Galerie WAGNER + PARTNER, Berlin, Germany
2008
The Brand New Deal, Caren Golden Fine Art, New York, USAReal: Selections from the Collection of the DZ Bank, Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany
Photos and Phantasy: Selections from The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Carnegie Art Museum, USA
Full Circle: Ten Years of Radius, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut, USA
2007
The Eclectic Eye: Pop and Illusion–The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, USAFrozen Moments, Galerie Christa Burger, Munich, Germany
Catalogues and Articles
Lange, Christiane, and Nils Ohlsen. Realismus: das Abenteuer der Wirklichkeit. München: Hirmer, 2010.Real: Photographs from the Collection of the DZ Bank. Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2010.
Venables, Raïssa. Raïssa Venables. Ostfildern-Ruit, Deutschland: Hatje Cantz, 2006.
Public collections
Nelson-Atkins Museum / Hall Family Foundation, Kansas City, Missouri, USAKunsthalle in Emden, Emden, Germany
Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany
The Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Roswell, New Mexico, USA
The Progressive Collection, Mayfield Village, Ohio, USA
Weisman Foundation, Los Angeles, USA
DZ-Bank, Frankfurt, Germany
Sammlung Knauthe, Berlin, Germany
UBS, Switzerland