'cynthia connolly & fiddle . hale county alabama . 03' by robie gay |
 |
"Cynthia Connolly is a Washington, DC based photographer who has had a profound effect on what has come to be called 'punk photography'. While studying at the Corcoran School of Art in the 1980s, Connolly became involved in the seminal DC punk scene that revolved around bands like Minor Threat and their label, Dischord Records. Her early forays into photo work revolved around documentation of the bands, their shows and the cast of characters that made up this scene. In 1988, she released her first book, the self-published Banned in DC which has become highly influential to subsequent generations.
Connolly continued to document the loose group of musicians she was associated with, but later began to develop a more conceptual approach to her work. Her series of photographs of musicians posing with their beat up, old cars featured members of bands such as Bikini Kill, Make Up, and Bratmobile. The photographs were a celebration of the iconoclastic spirit and a sharp commentary on the nature of status symbols. Recently, Connolly has shifted her focus away from the subject of people and towards the natural landscape. Her documentation of ice machines from across America (over 100 in all) is perhaps her best-known work in this genre. However, her amazing panoramas of the California desert, printed in high-contrast black and white, are both frightening and beautiful.
She has exhibited her photographs worldwide, usually in the form of self-booked "art tours". She travels to cities across America and Europe, mounting do-it-yourself exhibitions that take place in coffee shops or bookstores for a few days before moving on to the next town. Connolly is also known for unique postcards of her works, which she distributes through alternative book and record stores."
- Extracted from the book, 'Beautiful Losers' in conjunction with the show, 'Beautiful Losers' at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, March 2004, moving to The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California in June 2004.
read biography > |
