Eileen Neff

The photographic work of Eileen Neff combines traditional studio space with landscape, finding a meditative intersection between the two perceptions. Says Neff of her practice, “most of my work includes the landscape as a primary element of the photographic constructions I create. As much as the landscape, I love engaging the conventions of seeing and picturing as a source of syntactical invention. The works move freely between the apparent ordinariness of a recognizable image and sheer abstraction, sometimes appearing closer to painting’s pictorial strategies than what we expect from photography. Having formally studied painting before photography, and poetry before painting, I consider the ideas and boundaries between disciplines to be more fluid than not. With that said, I’d like my photographs to quicken one’s sense of attention and presence, the way sculpture can.”

Neff has had recent solo shows at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, The Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. She is the recipient of many awards including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Leeway Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Pew Fellowships in the Arts.