Your future, our focus
POWELL, WYOMING – On Tuesday, November 12, Northwest College presents a new photographic exhibit titled "50 Years Behind the Lens”, featuring the work of Associate Professor of Photography Christine Garceau. The exhibit takes the viewer through the transitions Garceau made as she followed the trajectory of photographic practices, from analog black and white image making in the 1970s, hand-coloring portraits and freelance photojournalism in the 1980s and ‘90s, and eventually to the current world of vivid color provided by digital DSLR and mirrorless cameras.
The opening reception runs from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the SinClair Gallery, located inside the Orendorff Building, and the exhibition will be on display through January 17. For those unable to attend the opening, gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and an individual tour can be scheduled by contacting Garceau at christine.garceau@nwc.edu.
The chronology of the exhibition provides glimpses into Garceau’s curiosity of the personalities represented in her portrait photography, as viewed alongside images gleaned from travels to Europe, South America, Cuba, and her more recent explorations since coming to Northwest College in 2012, into the back roads and wilderness of the Mountain West.
Among the images are black and white analogs from her “Black Portfolio”, which came from the grieving process she experienced in 2004 during the final months of production of Agfa photographic paper. Also included in the genre of black and white prints are images of renowned photojournalist Eugene Smith and civil rights activist Rosa Parks, who were each in their own way pivotal in Garceau’s development as a lifelong photographer. Garceau considers the images as two of the most important photographs she has included in her body of work over the years.
They represent, she has said, “the essence of photography’s place in my life because they remind me that change comes from the little things we do day-by-day to make a difference in the world we live in. Smith represents the passion to create images that help bring to light the injustice inflicted on individuals as the result of corporate and economic production.”
Bridging the 1980s and 1990s are the black and white hand painted portraits of children she made after earning her master’s degree in photography from Northern Michigan University and the birth of her son in 1986. Images from this time period populated her final thesis portfolio exhibition at NMU and were awarded an Individual Outstanding Artist Award by the Michigan Council for the Arts in 1990.
In the 2000s, Garceau began a long-term investigative documentary project title “Food For Life”. It looked closely at the types of foods individuals identified with as “their” food totem, and recipes family members have passed down from one generation to another. Images include 8-foot hanging fabric pieces of a woman dressed in traditional Austrian clothing, to mothers and daughters working side-by-side preparing enchiladas, Chinese dumplings, and classic American cinnamon buns.
A large part of the exhibit reviews her travels throughout the world including the more recent excursions with the NWC Photographic Communications program on annual study abroad trips to Romania (2007), Cuba (2013), Argentina/Uruguay (2015), Portugal (2018), Colombia (2020), Greece (2023), and Spain (2024).
