Brenda Biondo
Legacy of Shadows

Presented in partnership with the Center for Fine Art Photography

Works on Paper Gallery, June 3-September 4, 2022
Artist talk and closing reception: September 1 at 6 p.m.

The images in Brenda Biondo: Legacy of Shadows are from the artist’s series titled “A Legacy of Shadows,” traditional, non-Photoshopped photographs that evoke the fracturing of nature and the poignancy of acknowledging beauty in a time of destruction. The layers of shadows deconstruct/reconstruct the landscape while referencing efforts to control and constrain nature. By featuring shadows rather than the plants themselves, the work alludes to the greatly diminished state of the natural world—a world that is essentially a shadow of its former self.

To create these images, Biondo places rolled, cut and/or folded pieces of blank white paper on the ground and takes photographs of shadows cast by trees and other plants in the landscape. The blueness of the shadows is a natural result of the geographic locations where the photographs are made, since areas of high-altitude and/or exceptionally clear air allow greater scattering of sunlight’s blue wavelengths, causing ambient light to produce colored shadows. The angles of the paper dictate the hue and luminosity of the shadows.

Images in this series were photographed at high altitude in the artist’s home state of Colorado as well as at sea level in southern France during an artist residency. The images were made in wild areas as well as in urban green spaces in order to acknowledge plants’ crucial role in cooling the planet and increasing the livability of the world’s cities. This work also expands the artist’s previous focus on atmospheric light and color by allowing the artist to document atmospheric phenomenon (the scattering of blue light) by looking down at the ground rather than up at the sky.

Brenda Biondo: A Legacy of Shadows — A work from Brenda Biondo’s series “A Legacy of Shadows.”

About the Artist: Brenda Biondo

Brenda Biondo is a American artist who uses traditional camera techniques and a formalist aesthetic to explore the perception of atmospheric light and color and their role in the construct of landscape. Her work emphasizes the use of unconventional contexts to create new ways of looking at common subjects, while challenging viewers’ perception of color and three-dimensional space. Her interest in atmospheric phenomena and other components of the natural world is informed by her degree in journalism and her previous career as a writer specializing in environmental issues.

Brenda’s work has been exhibited throughout the country and published in numerous print and online publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Her photographs are held in numerous private and public collections, including those of the Library of Congress, the Museum of Photographic Arts, the Denver Art Museum, the Center for Creative Photography and the San Diego Museum of Art. A solo exhibit of her work opened at the San Diego Museum of Art in 2017.

Her first book of photographs, Once Upon a Playground, was published by the University Press of New England in 2014 and is now the subject of a five-year traveling exhibit organized by ExhibitsUSA.

A native New Yorker, she’s been a resident of Colorado since 1999. She currently lives in the small town of Manitou Springs, in the foothills of Pikes Peak, where the light and landscape continue to inspire her work.

—Artist Bio taken from the artist’s website: brendabiondo.com

Artist talk and closing reception

Join GAMA and the C4FAP for a special artist talk by Brenda Biondo followed by a closing reception for the exhibition on September 1 at 6 p.m. Free and open to all. Refreshments provided.