SCAD Alumni & Faculty Work Dazzles at Photo London

“SCAD is thrilled to present the work of these preeminent artists to the world at Photo London 2022,” said SCAD chair of photography Michael James O’Brien. “We realize, more than ever, how relevant visual culture becomes during challenging times and how important it is to gather with the international arts community at Somerset House. Spotlighting the materiality of photography, we present three artists who each practice very contemporary approaches to historical processes, where gestures are tangible and made physical rather than ephemeral. These works highlight the unique SCAD photography program, which covers creative practices from the 19th century to the metaverse.”

Delimiting their palettes to grayscale or sepia, the exhibiting SCAD artists offer abstract and figurative contemplations on the possibilities of the hand-made within the photographic medium, creating striking compositions that engage themes like time, nature, identity, and the body. Huang’s series Interstellar is a meditation on his Chinese heritage. Articulating culture through materials and processes, he uses ground rice to create contact prints that render complex abstractions of the solar system. The prints are presented in a circular format in square framing, evoking ancient Chinese beliefs in a square Earth and round sky.

Jalbert’s practice is rooted in the elements of photography, namely light and chemical reaction. Rather than using a lens or film, the artist makes sumptuous and abstract black-and-white works that depict perceptions and experiences of the natural world through traditional photographic chemicals and photo paper.

Turk uses the Van Dyke photogram process to explore human nature through the potential of light and shadow. Her life-sized silhouettes are rendered from natural materials that mimic skin, veins, organs, and bones, producing hybrid humans where the figure is present but fleeting. All three artists represent the dynamic SCAD photography degree program, which is one of the most popular degree programs at the university. SCAD students learn classical practices as well as innovative next-generation digital technologies. Photography alumni work at leading companies including Amazon, Google, and The National Portrait Gallery, and have images featured in top-tier publications and platforms such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Glamour, and CNN.

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SHINE HUANG
Shine Huang (M.F.A., photography, 2017) is an international photographer who was born and raised in Shanghai, China. Huang started his photography career as a photojournalist for the Xinmin newspaper in Shanghai. In 2008,  Huang moved to the United States, and in the past 10 years has worked for The Herald Newspaper, KAIT8 TV, Canyon News Santa Monica, CNN Films,  and CTRL Studios. Huang specializes in black-and-white film and historical photographic processes. 

JOSH JALBERT
Josh Jalbert is a professor of photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. He is a graduate of the University of Oregon’s M.F.A. program and the European Graduate School in the Philosophy, Art and Critical Thought division. Selected sites of exhibition include the Andrews Gallery at the College of William & Mary in Virginia; the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University in Virginia; Sarah Spurgeon Gallery in the state of Washington; the Schneider Museum of Art in Oregon; and the Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado.

V. ELIZABETH TURK
Artist V. Elizabeth Turk was a student of painting before making a life in photography in the 1970s. Her work is exhibited internationally and is in the collections of the High Museum of Art, the Polaroid USA Collection, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia in Atlanta, the Lamar Dodd Art Center in LaGrange, Ga., and Il Museo Palazzo Riso, Palermo, Italy — and in numerous private collections. Recently her photography was featured in the High Museum of Art exhibition Underexposed: Women Photographers from the Collection. In 2005, as co-author with writer William P. Baldwin, Turk provided photographic illustrations for Mantle Pieces of the Old South: Lost Architecture and Southern Culture (The History Press). Turk holds a master of visual arts degree from Georgia State University in Atlanta. For decades, she has mentored students at the Savannah College of Art and Design as a professor of photography. Her work is represented by Whitespace Gallery in Atlanta.