Luminous Visions: Lisa Nebenzahl: Constructed Photographs

Luminous Visions: Lisa Nebenzahl: Constructed Photographs by Galina KurlatApril 28, 2022

Lisa Nebenzahl’s series entitled Constructed Photographs re-frames our understanding of landscape and still-life. Her gem-like objects resonate with images of clouds, water, plants and sky transforming the known natural world into her personal collection of objects. These cloud like formations build upon each other reminding us of the fragility and resilience of the natural environment.

Traditional subject matter is carefully folded and constructed surprising the viewer with abstraction. By using a multidisciplinary approach to image making Nebenzahl is free to explore a range of historic processes and printmaking techniques along with paper folding in her work. With this expansive visual language Nebenzahl finds the intersection of process based photography and sculpture and it is from this space that she observes the natural world and invites chance into her practice. These objects encapsulate the temporal in nature while creating a space for beauty and melancholy to coexist.

Lisa’s project The Chico Poems is currently on view at Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum

Follow Lisa Nebenzahl on Instagram: @lisanebenzahl

I create work that explores fragility, resilience, loss, persistence, and the passage of time. Using shadow, light and manipulation of the natural world of plants, flowers, water and sky, I’m seeking to affirm the beauty and melancholy of change and the temporal nature of life. I embrace abstraction, chance and serendipity, weaving these into my practice as I observe and respond to the natural world. My current work explores challenging definitions of landscape and still-life.

As an interdisciplinary artist working with several media allows me to use a wide range of processes to explore printmaking, case/box-making, folding and montage. At the core of much of this work is my interest in manipulating my imagery of shadows, clouds, water and plants by folding the photographs into sculptural objects I call constructed photographs. I work with variety of techniques, from historical processes including cyanotype, platinum, photo gravure printing to building unique photographic objects.

Lisa Nebenzahl is an interdisciplinary artist who works with photography, printmaking, alternative photographic processes and small scale constructed photographs. A three-time recipient of the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant, and an inaugural recipient of the 2020 McKnight Fellowship for Book Artists, she holds a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Lisa lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

© Lisa Nebenzahl Rene’s Box (Lumens) #1 Hand crafted cadet blue presentation case containing eight rice paper constructed photographs 19.5” x 13.5” x 5”, 2017 In the collection of the Getty Research Institute

Tilted Cloud © Lisa Nebenzahl 10”x10” Duo-toned photogravure with à la poupée, hand printed with Charbonnel ink on warm Hahnemuhle Copperplate paper, edition of 4, 2020

Galina Kurlat (b. 1981, Russia) is a photographic artist living in Brooklyn, NY, she earned her BFA in Media Arts from Pratt Institute. Kurlat creates a visual relationship between herself and her subject by embracing the imperfections and possibilities of antiquated photographic processes. Kurlat’s work been shown in Korea, India, Scotland, France and the US. Recent exhibitions include “Anatomy of Loss”, Pictura Gallery in Bloomington IN, “Shadow Play”, Peter Halpert Fine Art in NYC, “Process”, Studio Bizio in Edinburgh, “Touch me Touch you”, Jinju International Photo Festival, South Korea, “Self-Processing- Instant Photography”, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA. Her work is collected throughout the US and abroad. Kurlat has been published in Oxford American, Analog Forever Magazine, Lenscratch, aPhotoEditor, Fraction Magazine, Houston Chronicle, Diffusion IX and Fraction of a Second, Radius Books along with numerous other periodicals and catalogs. She is the cofounder of Main Street Projects, an artist-run organization in Houston that has hosted over 150 local, national and international artists to date. MSP is an artists’ initiative which brings art into urban surroundings. During 2005-2011 Kurlat curated a number of multi-media and site specific exhibitions in alternate spaces throughout NYC.

Follow Galina Kurlat on Instagram: @galinakurlat

Tags: Analog, Cyanotype, Galina Kurlat, Lisa Nebenzahl, Photogravure, Washi rice paper