Paper Skies
Brenda Biondo
Brenda Biondo investigates natural light, atmospheric color and the photograph as object, putting the most ubiquitous of subjects — the sky — into unconventional contexts to create illusions that challenge expectations. Her work references the Light and Space movement’s emphasis on light as subject, while the images’ formal aesthetic qualities are influenced by the broad history of modern painting, especially that of minimalism, color field and hard-edge abstraction. The images in the series Paper Skies are created by re-photographing a folded and/or cut print of a sky image in front of actual sky. The juxtaposition of the print against the actual sky creates an abstract image that emphasizes the ambiguity between the real and the reproduced.
About the Artist
Brenda Biondo is an 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 and currently divides her time between Manitou Springs, CO and Marfa, TX.