Artist Statement
Our First Year Together:
In this series, our first year together, I am exploring ideas of time, place and the entanglement of a narrative, which occurs when images are placed next to one another. I am interested in the way photographs act as an indicator, a map, a marker and at many points a source of confusion. Images of landscapes, still lives, potentially overlooked moments in the domestic, alongside images made in museums and educational institutions, all come together to draw the viewer into the implied relations between these objects, places, and moments, to craft an expansive story.
The title of the series, Our First Year Together, indicates a structure of time and alludes to an undefined relationship, while the images work to confuse this expectation and make openings for an individual understanding. Who "our" is is left undefined and therefore continually reconsidered through the relationship that can be draw between the adjacent image.
Process Statement
These photographs were created from 2008 to now. In this series I have been working with a variety of formats: 4x5 and 6x7 film cameras as well as low quality digital point-and-shoot and a high-end digital SLR. Printed as Durst Lambda on Kodak Luster surface paper, the images range in scale from approximately 11x14 to 30 x 40.
Christine Shank is an artist that works predominantly in photography and is interested in exploring the narrative quality in a single image and through relating images in a series. Her work is concerned with ideas of loss, isolation, intimacy, storytelling and the implication of place. She has exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States since 1998. Her work has received funding through NYFA, The Midwest Center for Photography and The Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. Shank has participated in the Booksmart Residency in 2007 as well as the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Residency in Ithaca NY 2012 and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Residency 2013. Her artwork is housed at the Harry Ransom Center and the William Benton Museum of Art as well as several private collections.
Shank has a BFA from Miami University, Oxford Ohio and a MFA from Texas Woman’s University. She currently lives in Rochester NY where she is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Rochester Institute of Technology.