VENTURA COLLEGE GALLERIES HOST
PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITS ON TATTOS AND SCARS
VENTURA: The Ventura College Galleries will start their fall exhibits with two photography exhibits featuring renowned photographers: a show by Chris Rainier of National Geographic in Gallery 2 and an exhibit of the work of Amanda Granfield, a Ventura College alumna, in the New Media Gallery. The exhibits run from September 12 through October 10. The reception for the artists is September 12, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. on the patio by Gallery 2, and the press and community members are welcome to attend.
Gallery 2 will present the work of Chris Rainier featuring images from his book, Ancient Marks: The Sacred Origins of Tattoos and Body Marking. The show, using the same title, includes work created during the seven years of world travel that Rainier documented traditions of tattooing, scarification, piercing, and other forms of body-altering art, origins of which date to the dawn of mankind,” notes Wade Davis, anthropologist, botanical explorer, and best-selling author.
Jeff Schewe’s review on PhotoShop.com explained, “The ANCIENT MARKS book and Exhibition explore the intrinsic connection between mankind’s culture and the old tradition of marking the human body dating back two thousand years, with tattoos and scarification as a form of initiation, beauty, and highly ritualized ornamentation. That tradition continues in today’s modern Culture. The ANCIENT MARKS Project—through photography and text - communicates man’s need to adorn the sacred geography of the human body.” Exerpts and images from the book can be seen online at http://www.chrisrainier.com/Book.asp.
Davis describes Rainier as “widely acknowledged as one of the leading documentary photographers today, Rainier has traveled the world for such publications as Time, Life, and the New York Times, while documenting cultural issues, famine, and war in such places as Somalia, Sarajevo/Bosnia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Iraq. Rainier is co-director of Ethnosphere Cultures Program at the National Geographic Society and is a contributing editor for the National Geographic Traveler Magazine, a contributing correspondent for the National Public Radio show Day to Day. He also regularly teaches seminars on the use of photography as an instrument of social change. Chris and his wife Chandra divide their time among New York, Washington, D.C., and the mountains and streams of Colorado.”
Amanda Granfield is a former student of Ventura College and Rochester Institute of Technology, where she earned a BFA in photography. She was a recipient of a J. William Fulbright Grant, 2004-2005, and traveled to Ethiopia where she documented various modes of scarification. Granfield notes, “Each section of the body is its own world; strange fine lines tracing across even the most youthful skin in a myriad of different patterns. Scar tissue interrupts these patterns and brings to mind the function of skin: a boundary to separate the self from others. Scars are a break in this boundary. One is reminded of how fragile one’s corporeal existence is – held together only by this thin membrane. Even as scars symbolize vulnerability, they also demonstrate human resilience. One who is scarred is one who has survived. This is where the physical presence of scars intertwine with the intangible of the stories. While the body works to form a scar in order to heal a wound, the mind works to create a memory of the experience that surrounds the scar. From these memories stories emerge and it is through this storytelling that we find strength.”
Students staff both galleries, so the hours vary. For additional information and changes on hours, call Sharon Coughran-Rayden, gallery director, at Ventura College, (805) 648-8974 or contact her by email at sharon@cielhaus.com.
 QueenCanada by Chris Rainier
 Almanda by Amanda Grandfield
##### |
