Elijah Gowin, Clench1, 2006, 40 x 34 inches, Pigment inkjet print, Copyright the artist and courtesy of the Robert Mann Gallery (New York, NY)

IMAGE CREDIT: Elijah Gowin, Clench1, 2006, 40 x 34 inches, Pigment inkjet print, Copyright the artist and courtesy of the Robert Mann Gallery (New York, NY)

Elijah Gowin
(Born 1967, Dayton, OH; Lives Kansas City, MO)
Nominated by Jim Dow

Elijah Gowin is fascinated with ideas of the South, the spiritual, and the vernacular. The work featured in PRC/POV is related to his recent series depicting baptisms. Both series recall weathered color snapshots or Kodachrome stills and their method of creation—detailed below—acts as an apt bridge between the world of analogue and digital photography.

Gowin's recent solo shows have shown at venues such as the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia (Virginia Beach, VA), Vermont Center of Photography (Brattleboro, VT), and the Light Factory (Charlotte, NC). He is included in numerous collections and represented by the Robert Mann Gallery (New York, NY) and the Dolphin Gallery (Kansas City, MO). Gowin received his BA in art history from Davidson College and his MFA in photography from the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM) in 1996. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri (Kansas City, MO), where he oversees photographic studies.

Artist Statement

"Clench1" is part of a new series involving subjects who precariously float on and fall into water. Stripped of their belongings, figures are immersed in a world that is both nourishing and potentially malevolent. I construct these images by collecting amateur photographs from the Internet and combine them in Photoshop using multiple layers of backgrounds and figures. I print a small negative on inkjet paper and then scan it, so that the paper fibers becomes part of the final blurred image. I have purposely chosen to utilize tools and methods that question how the personal gesture can survive in a global society increasingly reliant on technology. Though my process takes advantage of such digital tools as scanners and internet search engines, it also involves elements of craft such as hand cutting so that each photograph is distinctly imperfect and unique.

Jim Dow

(Born 1942, Boston, MA; Lives Belmont, MA)

Since his initial lecture at the PRC with Bart Parker in 1984, Jim Dow has given workshops and lectures at the PRC and documented every PRC exhibition since 1985 on a volunteer basis. Receiving both his BFA and MFA from Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI), Dow studied with Harry Callahan and printed for Walker Evans in the early 1970s.

Known for depicting distinctly American places such as baseball parks, social clubs and mom and pop shops, Dow has also photographed similar subjects in Argentina, England, Portugal and Mexico. His work has been the subject of a Smithsonian Institution traveling show as well as an exhibition at the George Eastman House (Rochester, NY). Supported by many grants ranging from the National Endowment for the Arts to the Guggenheim Foundation, he has had numerous one-person shows and his work included in major collections worldwide, including the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, CA) and the Victoria & Albert Museum (London, England), among others. Dow is currently on the faculty of Tufts University (Medford, MA) and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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Artist Statement

Jim Dow