Jeffrey Silverthorne and Charlie Watts

Friday, October 14th, 2016 7:30 PM PST
San Francisco Art Institute Lecture Hall
800 Chestnut St, San Francisco, CA 94133

This event is presented in partnership with the San Francisco Art Institute

About Jeffrey Silverthorne:

Photographer Jeffrey Silverthorne has been making pictures for over 40 years, with his work included in over 35 one-person exhibitions, 40 group exhibitions, 36 publications including 3 monographs.

“In my photographic work, I... find a clarity built on simplicity and distance in seeing. By distance in seeing, I mean that the scene is up close, often intense, yet psychologically clear, such as dancing with grace in a raging hailstorm. I find contradictions in the medium of making are wealthier than fulfilling the probabilities of expectation.”

Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winner Annie Proulx writes:

“We come away from Silverthorne’s work with a heightened perception on many levels, feeling the weight of human existence, the jokes that genes, luck and circumstances play on all of us. (He) has both a gift for strong composition and knowledge of art which seems to have strengthened his work over the years. Gustave Dore, Thomas Eakins, German surrealists and expressionists, Goya and Rembrandt whisper behind the curtain"

Silverthorne’s work is in the permanent collections of the Biblioteque Nationale, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum; Yale University Art Gallery; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester; Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland; RISD Museum, Providence; Museum for Photography, Antwerp; State Gallery of the Czech Republic; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Musee de l’Elysee Lausanne Switzerland; Lars Swander, Copenhagen; Christian Caujolle, Paris and other collections.

His images have been collected in the monograph,  Jeffrey Silverthorne: Directions for Leaving, Photographs 1971-2006, published by Fotografisk Gallery, Narayana Press, Copenhagen, Denmark.  His work has been featured in solo or group shows in Paris, Dallas, Arles, Copenhagen, Providence, Brussels, Olympia, Manchester (UK), and in fourteen different publications in the US, UK, France, Denmark, and Germany.

Silverthorne has taught at Roger Williams University since 2002 as Associate Professor of Art and University Core Professor, and taught previously in many Visiting Professor roles at RISD, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth; Rhode Island College, University of Louisiana Lafayette; McNeese State University; Cleveland State University, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, the University of Houston, and Wheelock College, Boston. He was educated at Rhode Island School of Design, where he received MFA, MA in Teaching, and BFA degrees.

About Charlie Watts:

Atlanta-based queer artist Charlie Watts seeks to create images not of this world, to use photography as a stepping-stone to the unknown realm just past the peripheral edge of consciousness. She creates images to bring imagination into fruition and provide a visual escape from the mundane to the fantastical. This spring, Watts finished an MFA program in photography with the San Francisco Art Institute after graduating with highest honors and a B.A. in art history and visual arts at Emory University. She has been a member of the Dashboard CO-OP and a resident with The Creatives Project, through which she teaches photography in underserved neighborhoods. Her photographs are heavily performance-based and have been exhibited at Fort Mason, Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, SomARTS, Root Division, WhiteSpace, the Diego Rivera Gallery, Mason Murer, Barbra Archer Gallery, and “Boom City” with the Dashboard CO-OP. Her photographic exploration to raise awareness of sex trafficking in Atlanta, The ThrowAways, currently is on display at the Rollins School of Public Health. In 2011, Watts received the Emory Center for Creativity and the Arts Community Impact Award, and she is the recipient of grants from the City of Atlanta's Office of Cultural Affairs, among others. She is currently a fellow with the Walthall Fellowship through WonderRoot. 

At the core of it all, the work is about finding sanctuary in each other. In my artistic practice, I use magical realism to call attention to heart-wrenching issues — whether the destruction of the environment or the desecration of women — which I find to be inextricably linked. My work provides a visual escape from mundane everydayness into a fantastical world seen through the lens of queer female identity and women’s relationship to nature. Drawing on these connections between women and identity, I explore an inner-connectedness to female relationships and a physical connection to the planet. Working in the context of a society that celebrates the woman as mother and wife, my practice subverts that notion to instead celebrate our female friendships as equal to relationships with a sexual partner or spouse while simultaneously addressing female connectedness to the environment. My works returns again and again to the theme of solidarity among women. An undercurrent to these artistic statements is feminism—and in the broader sense, humanism, and the elevation of the role of womanhood. My feminism is intersectional in every form, and within my humanist view is embedded a deep concern for the environmental impact on our planet.