The Center Awards: EXCELLENCE IN MULTIMEDIA AWARD 2nd Place Winner: Annette Fournet

The Center Awards: EXCELLENCE IN MULTIMEDIA AWARD 2nd Place Winner: Annette Fournet by Aline SmithsonMay 13, 2019

©Annette Elizabeth Fournet, The Goddess Series: Persephone

Congratulations to Annette Fournet for being selected for The Excellence in Multimedia Award recognizing her project, The Goddess Series. The Excellence in Multimedia Award recognizes outstanding photo-media artists and storytellers working in a variety of media processes and subject matter. Supports a project that utilizes photography, video, installation, or other elements that expand on traditional methods of displaying and experiencing photography. Winners receive admission to Review Santa Fe portfolio reviews and participation in a winner’s exhibition at Pictura Gallery in Bloomington, IN.

Juror Josh Raab, Director of Instagram, National Geographic; formerly Multimedia Editor, TIME Magazine shares his thoughts on juroring:

This year brought a multitude of impressive submissions ranging from still photography to Augmented Reality. There were strong projects across the board that pushed the boundaries of traditional media from collage that challenged the depictions of women in traditional photography, to video montages that challenged the perception of time itself.

In The Goddess Series, Annette Elizabeth Fournet used collage to redefine old imagery informed by Victorian values to make the women in them into “goddesses”. This brilliant use of mixed media brings modern life to the photographs and with it the much needed celebration of the subjects.

©Annette Elizabeth Fournet, The Goddess Series: Daphne

Josh Raab is Director of Instagram at National Geographic. He was formerly a Senior Multimedia Editor at TIME where he produced The Drone Issue and led coverage of the Parkland shooting. He is also an adjunct professor at the International Center of Photography.

©Annette Elizabeth Fournet, The Goddess Series: Three Muses

The Goddess Series

The Goddess Series evolved from my previous project, Anima/Persona. The Anima / Persona series began as an exploration of the persona (external projection of self) and the anima (inner soul). These digital collage portraits of women were influenced in part by Symbolist paintings. As a young art student, the symbolist and Decadent paintings fascinated me. In these images I admired their reaction against the mundane, the banal, and bourgeoisie normalcy of the late 19th century. I later learned that many of these artists worked from misogynist fears stemming from their discovery that the Victorian notion that women did not have a sexual nature was untrue, and of their fear of the nascent women’s movement for equality.

In the Goddess Series I am using vintage photographic portraits of women. Utilizing Photoshop, scanning objects, fabric, etc. I transform each individual with digital collage into a particular mythological goddess. Disturbed and concerned by the regressive and repressive attitudes towards women found in current in political and religious groups today, I am moved to create images of women who can wield power in positive and/or sometimes in negative behaviors. I am expressing the power, exotic, spiritual, and esoteric qualities of women. It is my small way of fighting back.

©Annette Elizabeth Fournet, The Goddess Series: Invidia the Goddess of Envy

Annette Elizabeth Fournet has exhibited her photography at galleries and museums in France, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Korea, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Kyrgzstan Republic, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States.

Her work is included in public and corporate collections such as the Bibliotheque Nationale, San Diego Museum of Photographic Art, Houston Museum of Fine Art, Prague House of Photography, New Orleans Museum of Art, and others.

Annette Fournet lives and teaches photography in Memphis, Tennessee and in Prague, Czech Republic.