Vicki Reed

Artist Statement:

I began as a news photographer before the digital era and worked for years in a wet darkroom. Telling stories with my photographs was important at the newspaper and I continue that goal for my personal work after leaving the newspaper business. I was not able to manipulate my images while working in the photojournalism field. Now that I am concentrating on personal work I’m more interested in capturing a mood or feeling rather than capturing a perfect copy of what I see through the viewfinder. To that end, I enjoy exploring alternative and historic photographic processes as well as mixed media. I use vintage, pinhole, plastic toy cameras and digital cameras to explore the natural environment and my personal life. Recently, I have incorporated images taken with my cell phone into the encaustic process and I love the idea of pairing modern technology with one of the oldest art forms that dates back to the ancient Greeks. Other alternative processes that I use in my work include lith printing, cyanotype, lumen printing, image transfer and photogravure. Results are seldom predictable and for me that adds to the mystery and fun.

Biography:

Vicki is a former newspaper photographer and magazine art editor and currently is an artist in resident at Studio 224 in Port Washington, WI, where she teaches workshops in alternative processes and pursues personal projects. She uses plastic cameras as well as vintage, pinhole and digital cameras to explore the natural environment and her personal life and continues to experiment with alternative processes including lith, hand coloring, photogravure, encaustic, lumen and cyanotype.

Vicki has won numerous awards and has been widely published in books, national and international journals including The World of Lith Printing (UK), Fuzion Magazine (UK), Fine Art Photo (Germany), and She Shoots Film (Australia), The Oxford American(US)and New York Review of Books(US).h An image from her series The Growing Season, was purchased by the Racine Art Museum for their permanent collection and a short video was acquired by both the National Geographic Channel and the Weather Channel (UK). She has participated in over a hundred juried shows in the United States, Europe and Asia including, Origins, sponsored by the 2016 Tokyo Photography Festival, traveling to Singapore, Tokyo and New York,  Altered Views, Lightbox Photographic Gallery, Astoria, OR (Second Place), Center Forward, Center for Fine Art Photography at Fort Collins, CO (Honorable Mention), Alterations, A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX (Director’s Choice Award), All Things Big and Small, Cedarburg Cultural Center, Cedarburg, WI (Best of Show in 2010 and 2012), Biennial of Fine Art and Documentary Photography, Berlin and Barcelona (Finalist for JMCA Award), as well as group and solo shows sponsored by the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens (UK), Unlimited Grain Gallery (Netherlands), Art Intersection (Phoenix), Brickworks Gallery (Atlanta), Minneapolis Photography Center, Morpho Gallery (Chicago), New Century Artist Gallery (NYC), New York Center for Photography (NYC), Photo Place Gallery (Vermont), Rayko Gallery (San Francisco), Soho Gallery (NYC), TCC Photo Gallery (Longview, Texas) and Tilt Gallery (Scottsdale). In her home state of Wisconsin she has shown at the Anderson Art Center, Art Space, Artstart Gallery, Bradley Gallery, Cedarburg Art Museum, Cedarburg Cultural Center, Charles Allis Art Museum, Commonwealth Gallery, Crossman Gallery, Gallery 110, Gallery 224, Grace Chosey Gallery, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Marian Art Gallery, Milwaukee Urban Ecology Center, Museum of Wisconsin Art, Plymouth Art Center, Racine Art Museum, and Walker’s Point Center for the Arts. Her work has been included in large scale outdoor public art projects in Denver, Houston, Amarillo and Johnson City, TX.