Jeunes Talents 2009

STUDENT PHOTOGRAPHERS CAPTURE SPIRIT OF MODERN FRANCE
Works Are Focus of Los Angeles Gallery Exhibition and National Tourism Campaign

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (March 3, 2009) – As part of a cross-cultural educational and art project, eight U.S. college students were flown to Europe where they photographed their experience of modern French life. They will now have the privilege of seeing their work used in a major French tourism advertising campaign created by France’s national tourist office, Maison de la France.

The innovative project, called Jeunes Talents (“young talents”) is intended to capture the spirit of modern France through the eyes of a new generation of American artists.

In addition to the planned tourism campaign, photographs will be on view at Louis Stern Fine Arts, 9002 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, in an exhibition also titled Jeunes Talents. VIP and press openings are set for Thursday, March 26 from 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. The exhibition opens to the general public on Friday, March 27 and runs through April 11, 2009.

“Jeunes Talents is a unique opportunity for French cities to expand their visibility by being seen through the eyes of emerging American artists,” states Benoit Chollet, Director, Maison de la France for the Western U.S. “As a ground-breaking initiative that combines art and tourism, France and the United States, Jeunes Talents is a wonderful opportunity for young artists to be discovered.”

The collection of images is stunning in its array of expression and subject matter. Ranging from surreal to naturalistic in style and covering architecture, portraiture and landscape in subject material, the images reveal perspectives on contemporary society that could only have been seen with fresh eyes. Students were given free rein to interpret the daily life of the city where they were assigned, and the result is a radical departure from the old iconic imagery of France. In its totality, this collection represents a summation of the artist’s feelings and personal understanding of the region that they visited. It is a perspective that is by turns enlightening, beautiful and compelling.

Participating colleges include three in Los Angeles, California and one in New Orleans, Louisiana. They are Art Center College of Design, California Institute of the Arts and Otis College of Art and Design in the Los Angeles region, and Loyola University in New Orleans. The program is a joint initiative of Maison de la France and French Cultural Services in Los Angeles. Other partners include Air Tahiti Nui, Rail Europe and France Los Angeles Exchange (FLAX), a Los Angeles foundation dedicated to fostering a better understanding of France through public and cultural art events.

“Jeunes Talents is a unique opportunity to open the boundaries of art, creativity and cultural exchange,” states Yann Perreau, Deputy Cultural Attaché, Los Angeles. “Take eight talented young American photographers. Put them in an unknown environment, such as a French city with its own traditions and culture. Add key actors in the contemporary photography art scene, such as top art colleges in the U.S., and mix this with a famous gallery known for challenging photography, such as Louis Stern Fine Arts. The result is one of the most exciting, inventive and challenging art concepts to date. Cultural Services of the French Embassy is proud to be part of this project along with its partners.”

The cities and their assigned photographers are:

Antibes-Juan-les-Pins, a 2,500 year-old gem on the Mediterranean coast that boasts Europe’s largest marina and a stellar mix of artists, playboys and American émigrés who settled there in the roaring twenties. Today, it sits at the heart of France’s Silicon Valley.

-Esther Murphy, Loyola University, New Orleans

-Gillian Dicker, Loyola University, New Orleans

Biarritz, on the Atlantic coast, was transformed in the 19th Century by Empress Eugenie from a small fishing harbor into a sophisticated seaside resort, and is today Europe’s surf capital.

-Amanda Keller Konya, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles

-Alejandro Sanchez, California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles

Lyon, in central France, is the country’s second largest city. Today, as capital of the Burgundy region and internationally famous for its Michelin-starred restaurants, famous chefs, stylish brasseries and art de vivre, it is now a major industrial and cultural center.

-Spencer Lowell, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena

Montpellier, capital of Languedoc-Roussillon in Southern France, straddles Catalan and French cultures and boasts 300 days of sunshine per year. Once home to Nostradamus, it is today a major industrial center with a lively cultural scene.

-Tasha Moore, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles

-Justine Maccario, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena

-Allison Boggle, California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles

Plans for this multi-year collaboration are currently underway for Jeunes Talents in 2010, with a new crop of students and destination in the works, including the city of Marseille in the South of France, designated Europe’s cultural capital for the year 2013.

Artist Bios

Alejandro Sanchez

Alejandro lives in El Monte, CA and is 26. He received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 2004. He revealed his passion for the photography when he could do his first solo exhibition: “Lynching The Spectacle” at the L-Shape Gallery inValencia, CA. He also contributed to several group exhibitions.

He knew a lot of interesting experiences when he worked as Artist Assistant for Allan Sekula. He has a very full teaching experience which bring him a large sense of pedagogy. With “Jeunes Talents”, Alejandro Sanchez is going to show a very original view of France.

Allie Bogle Hwang

Allie Bogle is an LA-based artist who received her B.A. from UCLA in Art History, with an emphasis in Art, and her M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts in Photography and Media. At CalArts Ms. Bogle gained experience as both a teaching and graduate assistant. She also has experience as a teaching assistant for the Community Arts Partnership (CAP) and as an instructor for Art Share LA. She was also part of the first class of the Mountain School of Arts.

Most recently Ms. Bogle exhibited her installation, “Untitled (I Love You More Now That You’re Gone)” at The Contemporary Art Museum, Houston (CAMH) located in Houston, Texas. She has also exhibited her work in galleries throughout Southern California, including Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and Angels Gate Cultural Center.

In her work, Ms. Bogle attempts to excavate the history of things forgotten by the passage of time. By uncovering and revealing the story of these forgotten things, her hope is that their voices will resonate through her art, whether those things are people, places, or artifacts. She takes these things not to be the rejects of history, but rather as its forgotten orphans. Her art attempts to tell their stories and remember them, while fully recognizing the impossibility of resurrecting them as they once were.

Amanda Keller Konya

Southern California native Amanda Keller Konya received her BFA from California Institute of the Arts and her MA from California State University, Northridge.  Currently Keller Konya is working toward her MFA degree at Otis College of Art and Design.

Keller Konya’s work has been exhibited regionally, nationally and internationally at venues such as The Los Angeles International Airport, The Houston Center for Photography, The Quay School of Art in New Zealand and the Angkor Photography Festival in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

In addition, Keller Konya has received several grants and awards throughout her career as a photographer.  In 2005 she self published her first book, “Rungs In The Ladder” followed by “School’s Out, Forever?” in 2006.

Her practice is image based; dedicated to the investigation of the photographic medium, ideas about photography and the photographer him/herself.  She takes on sociopolitical issues within her work. In addition to a constant, critical evaluation of photography and its continuing state of flux she has also addressed issues such as school closures, toxicity and land use. It is her intent to provoke new questions and dialogs, offering viewers the opportunity to further contemplate the world we live in.

She is an educator in the Los Angeles area and works out of her Santa Monica based studio.

Esther Murphy

Esther earned her Bachelor's degree from Loyola University New Orleans in 2006 and was a student of Memphis College of Art during fall 2005. She made several exhibitions in spite of her 24 years old. Recently, she worked on “Second Skin” hosted by the Side Arm Gallery, New Orleans. She is the personal assistant to Michel Varisco since 2005. She received scholarships based on her works.

In general she is drawn to spaces and cultures that have a strong impression of history. she is interested in how a culture inadvertently maps its own history through the development of cities and through changes in social norms. She is also drawn towards photographing in a more traditional way. She derives her inspiration from Russia where she went to a couple of times. She says that she enjoyed working as an outsider. It promotes change in herself as an image maker and she feels more freedom in making new types of images for herself. Being on the outside informs her on where she comes from, after learning about new languages and cultures, she finds that it enriches her understanding and gives new perspective.

Gillian Dicker

Two of Gillian’s greatest loves are photography and the French language. She took her first photography class when she was a sophomore in high school. She spent every minute she could taking pictures of the people and places around her and developing her negatives and prints in the school darkroom

In high school, she also discovered the French language. She had decided at an early age that some day she would live in Paris, so she enrolled in French classes her freshman year instead of Spanish courses. She loved learning about French culture, expressions, literature and grammar.

When she started college in New Orleans, she knew she wanted to combine her two passions, so she decided to double major in photojournalism and French. She became the photo editor for the Loyola University student newspaper her sophomore year, and she learned the importance of telling a story through a photograph

She took several French classes a year all through college with the intention of living in Paris, as she had always dreamed. She spent the spring of his junior year studying abroad in Paris. When she graduated from Loyola, she wanted to go back to France, so she applied to be an English teaching assistant in elementary schools in Provence; unlike Paris, it was complete immersion in the French language and culture. Her camera was always busy, from photographing theatrical parades to everyday games of petanque.

Now she is 25 and she works as a Web producer for YouthNoise.com, a nonprofit Web site dedicated to engaging young people in social change and volunteerism around the world, a mission that encourages cultural exchange and education.

Justine Maccario

Justine Maccario was born on September 11, 1983 in Torrance, California. In the fall of 2008 Justine graduated with distinction from Art Center College of Design with a BFA with emphasis in Photography and Imaging. Her father being in the film industry, Justine spent most of her younger years on movie sets around the country. This is where Justine grew a love for travel. Her parents eventually settled in the San Fernando Valley where Justine grew up and went to school.

The area influenced Justine’s love for machinery and industrial sites. Seeing these factories in her neighborhood Justine became fascinated with them and always hoped to get inside. Love of art compelled Justine to draw but was never able to capture the essence of these places. In junior college she tried her luck with photography and realized that photography allowed her to make images the way she imagined them.

At Art Center Justine was able to gain access to those sites she dreamt of getting into and created a body of work that emphasizes her style and point of view. While at Art Center she interned at TBWA Chiat Day in Los Angeles and Jupiter Images in Pasadena, showing interest in not only being a photographer but also in Art Buying and Art Direction. Justine currently lives in Los Angeles as a freelance photographer.

Spencer Lowell Mishlen

Spencer first experienced his passion for photography when he got a job as a print technician at one-hour-photo lab while in high school. He quickly discovered that photography could allow him to be creative while sustaining himself. Early on he made the decision to take the necessary steps, whether big or small to become a professional photographer.

Over the next five years he worked as a printer and manager at various professional photo labs; sold photo and lighting equipment at multiple camera stores ; and photographed personally and professionally anything he could get in front of his camera. During this time he mined all his resources and acquired enough basic elements of photography to know it was time to go back to school.

Spencer attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and graduated with Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography and Imaging in 2007. The majority of curriculum he received at Art Center was based on a digital workflow which now plays a huge roll in his process. While in school, he excelled in documentary, still life, portrait, and architectural photography. He received scholarships based on his work and showed in the school’s gallery on several occasions.

Since graduation, Spencer has worked on multiple contracts for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena as a documentary and portrait photographer. He has also had work shown work in GOOD and Look-Look Magazine. He is represented by Jupiter Images for his stock photography. Most recently he spent two weeks in Lyon, France photographing for the French Consulate in Los Angeles and the Tourist Office in Lyon.

With the eye of an artist and the mind of a scientist, Spencer strives to produce work that investigates the human condition. Viewing his photographs is a visceral experience. His work focuses on principles of shape, pattern, color and atmosphere. He is grateful for every day that he gets to do what he loves and looks forward to where his journey as a photographer will take him.

Spencer was born, raised and happily resides in Los Angeles.

Tasha Moore

Tasha Moore is an artist who responds to human traumas largely induced by purposefully constructed social phenomena.  Through prose and poetry composed of exact words and distinctive images formed by any accessible means, she seeks to isolate, confront, and (re)define these arguably mysterious and plaguing phenomena. Her urgent priority is the visualization of black female stereotypes as vehicles for negotiating identities.

Tasha is refining her artistic practice as a Master of Fine Arts candidate at Otis College of Art & Design in Los Angeles, California. She acquired prodigious technical photographic, filmic, and new media training from Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Professional Photography and Digital Media in 2007.   Immediately prior to this acute inculcation, Tasha received a Bachelor of Arts degree (2004) in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University in her native town of New York City.  It was at Columbia that Tasha resolved to narrow her analytical focus in her approach to social issues, and the aesthetic conveyance of such.

Tasha Moore’s ultimate goal is to give birth to a revolutionary and infectious ideology through her work, thereby transcending the story-telling tools to become a pleasant stain on the collective cultural subconscious.