Newspace Center for Photography is pleased to present its Fourth Annual Juried Exhibition this July. This year's exhibition has been curated by TJ Norris. Mr. Norris is a practicing independent contemporary artist, curator, and freelance writer living in Portland, Oregon. His studio practice has concentrated on a hybrid of media and is often experiential and immersive in nature. Since the late 1980's, Norris has shown internationally, and is an active arts lecturer and critic. Norris has been a regular cultural writer for a variety of publications including ArtNews, Signal to Noise, Grooves, Igloo Magazine, Leonardo/MIT Press, and others.

Juror statement:

A breeze, a passerby, a subtle shift in light. All of these things change our perspective slightly, sometimes almost subliminally. And in our contemplation of the atmosphere surrounding us we become witnesses to the gestures of time, changes in natural and manmade places and those who populate them, the social and political strata that ground some and rip others from their roots. These gestures were often referred to by influential French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson as "the decisive moment".

Spatial relationships, quietude/discordance, and perhaps a fleeting sensibility of new technical and analytical definitions about space are just a few of the contemporary concerns of photographers who inform much of the work that defines our time.

When one puts a call for entries out into the public sphere, it's advised that you should plainly expect the unexpected. And that's exactly what I got - a divine roll of the dice. And after a deep breath, the curator in me realized that this was hardly a typical crap shoot.

About 325 entries were received from all over the globe with such varying sensibilities, both thematically and stylistically. There was a whole lot of superior work submitted this year and the process of elimination never seemed simple. Sure, I am privileged and used to looking at lots of portfolios, but my appetite for more has yet to be fully quenched.

The curatorial process is so specialized, selective, personal and biased. I sought a broader tonal connection between disparate work that make up a visual/conceptual language. Work that can bear complex psycho/social as well as distinctively formal leanings. The submissions were in various media, from standard to digital work, some heavily manipulated, some using the techniques of yesterday with a twist of the contemporary built-in. The subject matter here ranges to cover cultural influences, which blend hints of private or public space, to works that rely on the quirky domestic gaze or even more esoteric abstraction.

While the main premise of the exhibition may seem left of center, it is the single image and its impact that kept me returning to the idea that these are each a selective and concealed moment in time. The essence and fragility of that very moment became heightened through this quest to bring you a body of work right here and now.

TJ Norris
May 2008

Jessica Skloven has been selected to receive a $500 cash prize and a solo show at The Center in 2009. Congratulations Jessica!

Jessica Skloven
San Francisco, CA

[artist website]

Honorable Mentions

Garvan Gallagher
Dublin, Ireland

[artist website]

Alia Malley
Los Angeles, CA

[artist website]

Daniel Barron
Olympia, WA

[artist website]

This years exhibit also features the following artists: