Eric's New Blog

Hey Everyone,

I just wanted to let you all know that our good friend Eric Watts has created a blog for his new work. He's uploaded 4 videos so far, one of which you can watch below. I would highly recommend, however, spending a few extra minutes and watching the others.

Make sure to check the blog regularly for updates and new work!



Borderline, 2009 (Video)

© Eric Watts

School of Visual Arts Mentors Exhibition

Good friend and fellow Exposure Project member Eric Watts will have work in the upcoming SVA Mentors Exhibition. For anyone unfamiliar with the Mentors program, it was:

"designed to cultivate relationships between established and emerging artists and to introduce new talent to the New York arts community.

Drawn from the ranks of city’s best-known photographers, curators, art directors, publishers, art dealers, critics and writers, the mentors are paired with students based upon their field of expertise and the student’s area of concentration."

Mentors
April 10 - 25, 2009
Reception: Tuesday, April 14, 6-8pm

Visual Arts Gallery
601 West 26 Street, 15th floor
New York, NY 10001

Show your support and attend!

Artist Statement, 2009 (Video)

© Eric Watts

Work in Progress: Eric Watts

This is a selection of work I've been doing over the past year. Let me know what you think. Thanks - Eric

A New American Portrait

Of definite interest if you are in the New York area is the show "A New American Portrait" at the Jen Bekman Gallery. Co-curated by Jen Bekman and Jörg Colberg, Conscientious Blog Editor, the show takes a look at America’s contemporary portrait photographers.

The work in the show is emblematic of current trends in the genre, documenting a wide range of ideas within the portrait genre. Included are posed shots, environmental portraits, and self-portraits.

For myself, the work that truly shined through in this show was that of Alec Soth and Jen Davis.

Soth has established himself as the pre-eminent figure of today’s environmental portrait photographers. His work, although oftentimes representing marginal circles of American culture always has an overriding honesty and beauty to it. In his portraits you can feel his compassion for the people and places he photographs, which I feel separates him from many of his peers who have set out to shock audiences or exploit their subjects.

Jen Davis’s self portraits confront America’s obsession with surface beauty. Davis uses her own body to confront our ideas of what someone is supposed to look like, and what we are supposed to be attracted to, as well as her own aspirations and happiness. This nation’s obsession with being young, thin, and desirable leave Davis a lot of room to work with, and personally I find her work to be much more poignant than work of Laura Greenfield, who is working on similar themes.



Also of interest to me was the work of Todd Hido, and Brian Ulrich. I feel that my own familiarity with Soth and Davis’s made them easier for me to connect to, but I was definitely intrigued by the work of Ulrich and Hido, and I hope to see larger bodies of their work soon.

I only wish this exhibition could have been larger to incorporate larger bodies of work and more photographers, but as it is I found the show to be very thought provoking. This show and many others have proven Jen Bekman to be a very important gallery for emerging and contemporary photography. We need to support venues like these that are breathing new life into our medium.

-Eric Watts

"A New American Portrait"

Jen Bekman
6 Spring St. New York, NY
June 22nd –August 3rd
Wednesday-Saturday Noon- 6 pm


From Top to Bottom:

Alec Soth, Candlelight Hotel

Jen Davis, 4 AM

Brian Ulrich, Untitled (from the Thrift Series)

All Images Copyright the Artists

Work In Progress: New Photographs by Eric Watts

These are some new photographs from Eric Watts, a soon to be Brooklyn based photographer. Eric has been residing in Philiadelphia for the last year where the majority of these images were taken. In the fall, he will be attending the School of Visual Arts in New York; where he will work towards finishing his BFA.









From Top to Bottom:

United Drive, West Bridgewater, MA 2006

Venango Street, Philadelphia, PA 2007

Erie Avenue @ North 3rd Street, Philiadelphia, PA 2007

8th Street @ Bainbridge Street, Philadelphia, PA 2007

All images copyright Eric Watts