LACP’s Sixth Annual “The Creative Portrait” Exhibition – 2021

The Juror

Aline Smithson http://alinesmithson.com/ is a visual artist, educator, and editor based in Los Angeles, California. Best known for her conceptual portraiture and a practice that uses humor and pathos to explore the performative potential of photography. Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood, her work is influenced by the elevated unreal. She received a BA in art from the University of California at Santa Barbara and was accepted into the College of Creative Studies, studying under artists such as William Wegman, Allen Ruppersburg, and Charles Garabian. After a decade-long career as a New York Fashion Editor, Aline returned to Los Angeles and to her own artistic practice.

She has exhibited widely including over 40 solo shows at institutions such as the Griffin Museum of Photography,the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, the San Jose Art Museum, the Shanghai, Lishui, and Pingyqo Festivals in China, The Rayko Photo Center in San Francisco, the Center of Fine Art Photography in Colorado, the Tagomago Gallery in Barcelona and Paris, and the Verve Gallery in Santa Fe. In addition, her work is held in a number of public collections and her photographs have been featured in publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, PDN, Communication Arts, Eyemazing, Real Simple, Los Angeles, Visura, Shots, Pozytyw, and Silvershotz magazines.

In 2007, Aline founded LENSCRATCH, a photography journal that celebrates a different contemporary photographer each day.

Juror's Statement

As the summer dwindles down to its final glory, I spent the last of my vacation, sitting by a lake and looking at hundreds and hundreds of images from one of my favorite genres in photography: Creative Portraiture. I have just spent the last week immersed in your photographs, revisiting and reconsidering each image. It was an exciting and daunting process, and, in the end, I selected about 3 times the amount that could hang on the walls. So, thank you for submitting so much excellent work and making my decisions so difficult! It was inspiring to see the range of approaches and the array of imaginative imagery. Please know that this was not a cursory examination, but a long hard look at your work. Thank you to all who submitted such varied and spectacular approaches to considering each other.

With the ubiquitous-ness of photography today, creative approaches to all genres of photography shift the norm and reinvigorate the medium, as evidenced by all the submissions to this exhibition. The photographs selected for the exhibition are like small novellas, captured somewhere between the beginning, middle, or ending of a personal narrative or way of seeing. Creative Portraiture is different than traditional portraiture—it allows the photographer to intervene with the experience, adding an imaginative reconsideration of the person in front of the camera.

It is not an easy task to juror an exhibition, especially one where metaphor, intention, and the essence of a human being needs to be conveyed in a single image. With all exhibitions, there are many wall-worthy submissions that come steps away from the finish line, only to be rejected due to constraints of space. As a juror, I look for unique approaches to a theme, photographs that are not literal or obvious interpretations, and are well executed and well considered photographs. I consider the quality of the photograph itself, the quality of expression, and look for deeper meaning, levity, or creativity. Finally, I am not only selecting single images, but also curating a group of photographs into an exhibition that needs feel fresh and have a strong point of view.

Thank you to the Los Angeles Center of Photography for this wonderful opportunity. Congratulations to all the artists included in “The Creative Portrait” exhibition. – Aline Smithson

Exhibiting Artists

Amanda Smith, Annette Burke, Annie Claflin, Bootsy Holler, Debe Arlook, Donald Graham, Elizabeth Bailey, Eric Smith, Georgina Reskala, Holly Romano, Hugh Jones, Jacque Rupp, Jason Ward, Jo Ann Chaus, Joseph Rafferty, JP Terlizzi, Karen Constine, Kat Moser, Kathryn Mayo, Kymberli Ghee, Leanne Trivett, Lillian Elaine Wilson, Lisa McCord, Liz Steketee, Marcia Mahoney, Maureen Bond, Melanie Chapman, Michael Honegger, Mitsu Yoshikawa, Nancy Farese, Nina Weinberg Doran, Noelle McCleaf, Olga Merrill, Sandra Klein, Sonya Naumann, Tama Hochbaum, Tuan Bui, Ursula Sokolowska

Location

Los Angeles Center of Photography, 5566 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016

Opening Day Reception

Sunday, October 24, 10 am – 5 pm PST, 2021.

Tuesday – Sunday, 10 am – 5 pm PST (closed Mondays)