Mysterious Visions: Dreams, Fantasies, and Mirages

Juror: Emma Powell
Gallery Exhibition: April 23 - May 18, 2013

Juror's Statement
I was excited by the prospect of jurying an exhibition of Mysterious Visions, a topic that represents the range of possibilities available in photography today. In particular, it draws on photography’s ability to make visible scenes that never were or could be. It also brings together images of the real world that are seen or framed unexpected ways.  For this exhibition I was drawn to images that took me into another world: some were dreamscapes, others fantasies.  I strove to include images made with a variety of techniques and styles, while also creating a cohesive group of images that would speak to each other on the walls of the gallery and in the pages of the catalog.  The number of incredibly striking photographs submitted made this decision process a difficult one, and I would like to thank each of you for sharing your mysterious visions.

- Emma Powell

About the Juror
Emma Powell is an assistant professor of art at Colorado College. Powell graduated from the College of Wooster, and received her MFA in photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. Her work often examines photography's history while incorporating historic processes and other devices within the imagery. 

"My photographic work focuses on fictional narrative. I create art that visualizes curious scenarios in order to convey a message or feeling instead of a record of a moment. I utilize a range of hand-applied photographic emulsions in order to visualize the distance between fantasy and reality, as well as to make prints that appear as objects instead of windows. The photographic processes I use are chosen intentionally to evoke another place or time that is removed from the every day, adding layers of narrative meaning through historical references or material qualities."

 http://www.emmapowell.photo/

Call for Entries
Photography can be a way of recording the facts of the visual world. But the medium can also allow us to envision people, places, or things that extend beyond our usual sense of reality. For the exhibition MYSTERIOUS VISIONS: DREAMS, FANTASIES, AND MIRAGES, we sought photographs that encourage us to enter the world of the dream, with all its mysteries and fantasies.