PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT by Texas artist Twyla Bloxham
MOVES to SALES GALLERY HALLWAY at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center
Twyla Bloxham is an artist working primarily in photographic arts. Born in Davenport Iowa, she attended the University of Iowa where she received undergraduate degrees in Environmental Studies and Photography.
She continued her education at Texas Woman’s University, graduating in 2009 with an MFA in photography. She has been teaching at the Art Institute of Dallas as assistant professor since 2010 where she is Program Coordinator of the Digital Photography Department. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in Aesthetic Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Her work includes film, digital, alternative processes, bookmaking, and sculpture with a focus on nature, humans, and their complex interactions with the natural world.
Twyla has exhibited in solo and group Art Shows in the Dallas, Texas area as well as Iowa City. She has additionally shown her work at Ciao Gallery in Jackson Hole Wyoming, and in Palm Coast, Florida. She has received numerous 1st place awards for her photography.
The FAA’s exhibit by Twyla Bloxham is titled “Pseudoscience: The Photograph as Evidence of Truth and Artifact of Fiction” and her artist statement follows –
Pseudoscience is an ongoing series of photographs that emulates the aesthetic qualities of scientific imagery, so much so that at first they may appear to be actual scientific documents. This series of color photographs utilizes techniques of shallow depth of field, tight framing, negatives, and lens distortion in order to create fabricated science imagery. The images consist of a combination of traditional film and digital capture. The smaller photographs are of vegetation taken outdoors. Captured in a studio on a simple background; the larger photographs appropriate the scientific naming convention of using Latin, which reveals the true content of the piece.
The circular crop and inverted colors reference specimens as seen through a microscope. The mundane becomes Pseudoscience creations transformed into subjects of study. During this transformation, the commonplace items which include both manmade and organic objects such as food, toys, plants, and other various household items become more complicated, emulating the look of cells, bodily systems, and other scientific phenomena causing the ordinary to appear alien from our every day experiences.
The images are humorous and playful depictions of the everyday reexamined in a new and disorienting context. This body of work facilitates dialogue regarding the authenticity of the photographic medium, re-contextualization, the concept of originality in contemporary art, as well as science as a tool to understand and categorize the natural world.
