March 2021 Featured Artist
Award-Winning Photographer & President of fotofoto Gallery
Pamela Waldroup
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Pamela Posing with Award-Winning Work from her "MoMA Interactions" Series
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Originally from the Midwest, Pamela Waldroup continues to document her East Coast experience with a newcomer's fascination for details. She has established herself as a fine art photographer on the North Shore of Long Island, NY. Pamela holds a B.F.A. from Ohio University and a Master of Arts in Drawing and Printmaking from Long Island University, where she studied with master artist Stan Brodsky.
Pamela's intensive experience in printmaking with Dan Welden in Florence, Italy and in the Masters in Art Workshop at Southampton inspired her transition to digital photography as her primary medium. For 33 years, she taught darkroom and digital photography and fine arts while successfully exhibiting her work and the work of her students in many local and regional venues. She has been the recipient of numerous awards and has exhibited extensively in the metropolitan area in galleries and museums including: the Alex Ferrone Gallery, Salmagundi Art Club in NYC, 440 Gallery in Brooklyn, fotofoto Gallery, East End Arts Gallery, Patchogue Arts Council Gallery, Mills Pond House Gallery, Main Street Gallery, Art League of LI, Long Island Museum, b.j. Spoke Gallery, the 2018 Long Island Biennial at Heckscher Museum and smaller local galleries. Pamela is the president of fotofoto Gallery in Huntington, NY and an artist member of the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA) in New York City. |
Pamela discusses several photographic series and the inspiration behind these studies, whether it be a subtle anomaly or a fascinating intricacy others might not see but that she hopes to illuminate.
Staircase Number 3, Nassau Museum of Art
© Pamela Waldroup |
"My photographs are as much about what I leave out as what I choose to include and more about the feelings I have in the moment than the actual representation." ~ Pamela Waldroup ARTIST STATEMENT Staircases, Nassau County Museum of Art While visiting the Nassau County Museum of Art, I was mesmerized by the ambiguity of the constantly changing perspective as I stood over, under and beside the gorgeous antique staircase. The slightest physical movement of my camera shifted the illusions of forward or backward movement in space. The psychological effect of the spiraling structure was one of inhabiting an infinite place not confined by the weight of its architectural elements. Subtle changes in value in the colors of the walls pushed and pulled in both directions simultaneously - resulting in the portrayal of a space with a powerful gravitational pull that shifted directions in a fleeting moment. |
Staircase Number 2, Nassau Museum of Art
© Pamela Waldroup |
Staircase Number 4, Nassau Museum of Art
© Pamela Waldroup |
ARTIST STATEMENT
Organic Reactions Series
Organic Reactions is inspired by the desire to connect my photographic work to being more mindful during any given moment. Enhancing the deep folds and rhythmic crevices captured in my black and white images creates a flow of movement throughout the pieces that invites the viewer and me to hyper-focus on the subject. As Vincent Van Gogh stated, "I believe that one thinks much more soundly if the thoughts arise from direct contact with things, than if one looks at things with the aim of finding this or that in them."
Primarily photographing in black and white, I am inspired by Edward Weston to create images of dynamic movement that often take on a sculptural quality. I experience the ebb and flow in organic subjects, much like the meditative involvement I feel when capturing and editing my images. Enhancing the contour lines and dark values formed by crisp edges juxtaposed against deep recesses creates a sense of dancing delicacy and solid foundation, while simultaneously providing the perfect opportunity to fully absorb every fascinating detail unfolding in front of me.
Organic Reactions Series
Organic Reactions is inspired by the desire to connect my photographic work to being more mindful during any given moment. Enhancing the deep folds and rhythmic crevices captured in my black and white images creates a flow of movement throughout the pieces that invites the viewer and me to hyper-focus on the subject. As Vincent Van Gogh stated, "I believe that one thinks much more soundly if the thoughts arise from direct contact with things, than if one looks at things with the aim of finding this or that in them."
Primarily photographing in black and white, I am inspired by Edward Weston to create images of dynamic movement that often take on a sculptural quality. I experience the ebb and flow in organic subjects, much like the meditative involvement I feel when capturing and editing my images. Enhancing the contour lines and dark values formed by crisp edges juxtaposed against deep recesses creates a sense of dancing delicacy and solid foundation, while simultaneously providing the perfect opportunity to fully absorb every fascinating detail unfolding in front of me.
Carnivale
"Organic Reactions Series" © Pamela Waldroup |
Rims
"Organic Reactions Series" © Pamela Waldroup |
Mother
"Organic Reactions Series" © Pamela Waldroup |
Musings from the artist...
My first love was drawing - using chunks of graphite, heavy charcoal, sometimes flowing ink...often including sepia-toned conte crayons on large paper...and always with the nude figure as my live subject.
Using photography as a medium evolved from photographing my own work. My camera became my constant companion. Drawing still informs the way I edit with Photoshop, using both hands and the mouse and keyboard almost intuitively in the same manner in which I approach light and shadow when drawing. Photography gives me immediate validation of what I am experiencing at a particular moment in time and allows me to re-experience the connections when I edit and print. Shooting, editing and printing my own images play equally significant roles in the production of individual pieces and bodies of work.
I believe that my photographs establish a concrete connection to past, present and future. Growing up, I went to eight different schools in four different states. My camera gives me the ability to organize the serendipitous connections that occur around me. And each new body of work motivates me to look at the connections between previously completed series.
My first love was drawing - using chunks of graphite, heavy charcoal, sometimes flowing ink...often including sepia-toned conte crayons on large paper...and always with the nude figure as my live subject.
Using photography as a medium evolved from photographing my own work. My camera became my constant companion. Drawing still informs the way I edit with Photoshop, using both hands and the mouse and keyboard almost intuitively in the same manner in which I approach light and shadow when drawing. Photography gives me immediate validation of what I am experiencing at a particular moment in time and allows me to re-experience the connections when I edit and print. Shooting, editing and printing my own images play equally significant roles in the production of individual pieces and bodies of work.
I believe that my photographs establish a concrete connection to past, present and future. Growing up, I went to eight different schools in four different states. My camera gives me the ability to organize the serendipitous connections that occur around me. And each new body of work motivates me to look at the connections between previously completed series.
Manhattan Patterns
"City Perspectives - Inside and Out" © Pamela Waldroup |
Wavy Ascent
"City Perspectives - Inside and Out" © Pamela Waldroup |
ARTIST STATEMENT
City Perspectives - Inside and Out
The black & white photographs in City Perspectives - Inside and Out voice my strong desire to capture interactions between human, environmental and industrial elements through a geometric approach found in the repetitive patterns and shapes frequently appearing in my images. Exaggerated angles of view and juxtaposition of serendipitously placed elements combine with moody and sometimes dramatic light to leave the viewer with a sense of a presence, unseen but felt. My photography is about hyper-focusing on the subject to solidify my own experience and provoke a memory - real or imagined - to surface both for the viewer and me. The absence of color allows the viewer to become immersed in the place, mood and time depicted, but leaves room for personal interpretation and imagination as well.
I am inspired by the words of Henry David Thoreau: "The question is not what you look at, but what you see."
City Perspectives - Inside and Out
The black & white photographs in City Perspectives - Inside and Out voice my strong desire to capture interactions between human, environmental and industrial elements through a geometric approach found in the repetitive patterns and shapes frequently appearing in my images. Exaggerated angles of view and juxtaposition of serendipitously placed elements combine with moody and sometimes dramatic light to leave the viewer with a sense of a presence, unseen but felt. My photography is about hyper-focusing on the subject to solidify my own experience and provoke a memory - real or imagined - to surface both for the viewer and me. The absence of color allows the viewer to become immersed in the place, mood and time depicted, but leaves room for personal interpretation and imagination as well.
I am inspired by the words of Henry David Thoreau: "The question is not what you look at, but what you see."
New York City Center
"City Perspectives - Inside and Out" © Pamela Waldroup |
Met Museum Cafe
"City Perspectives - Inside and Out" © Pamela Waldroup |
Gottlieb with Legs
"MoMA Interactions" © Pamela Waldroup |
ARTIST STATEMENT MoMA Interactions For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a heightened awareness of my surroundings. I take photographs because I want to capture that feeling of being mesmerized by a moment, so I can relive those feelings each time I look at my work. My camera emboldens me to linger far longer than I might normally feel comfortable. "Echoes of Pollock", "Pollock 3D" and "Gottlieb with Legs" are photographs from a larger “MoMA Interactions" series. I shot these images discreetly at the Museum of Modern Art using the shutter-priority feature of a small digital camera. Immediate feedback allowed me to examine my personal perspective and determine whether to engage in the process obviously or to simply observe and record. I think my intentional searches for random coincidences - juxtaposed against physical and sometimes emotional detachment - found a voice through blur and articulation in these multi-layered glimpses of frozen time. The placement, the close or distant proximity, the lighting, the shots I choose to keep and the ones I throw away all narrate a search to find order in chaos through intense observation of the accidental commonalities that occur around us every day, in every moment. |
Pollock 3D
"MoMA Interactions" © Pamela Waldroup |
Echoes of Pollock
"MoMA Interactions" © Pamela Waldroup |
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Where do you find sanctuary?
I am fortunate that I find sanctuary in many of the things that I do every day. Shooting photographs, editing with Photoshop and spending time looking through years of older images takes me to a place of mindful meditation and allows me to block out all of the pressures and stresses caused by the current state of our world. Hours can pass; then a welcome nose-poke from my Goldendoodle, Sammy Girl, melts my heart with gratitude every time. Whenever I want to completely let go of it all and just be in the moment, I head to the bluff nearby. The enormity of the view of the Long Island Sound and the river that heads towards my home remind me that I am a lucky speck in a much larger universe where we are all connected. |
"In today's chaotic and rapidly changing world, I use my camera to validate a search for peaceful resolve through investigation of often unobserved details in my environment and, hopefully, invite the viewer to do the same." ~ Pamela Waldroup |
Click gallery window image for more of Pamela's "MoMA Interactions" series.
fotofoto Gallery, a nonprofit organization, was founded in October 2003 by a group of Long Island-based photogaphers desiring to promote experimental and traditional photographic processes and visions. The gallery is located in Huntington, NY. |
CURRENT ONLINE EXHIBITION:
Alex Ferrone Gallery "A Study of Flora" Featuring Pamela Waldroup, Constance Sloggatt Wolf and Nijole Kudirka 25425 Main Road Cutchogue, NY Included with this online show, readers can listen to an interview discussing the exhibition on: WLIW-FM Radio Pamela Waldroup with Gianna Volpe, Morning Host |
