Meghann Riepenhof

Statement:
This work stems from my fascination with the nature our relationships to the landscape, the sublime, time, and impermanence. Entitled Littoral Drift, a geologic term describing the action of wind-driven waves transporting sand and gravel, the series consists of camera-less cyanotypes made in collaboration with the landscape and the ocean, at the edges of both. The elements that I employ in the process—waves, wind, and sediment—leave physical inscriptions through direct contact with photographic materials. Photochemically, the pieces are never wholly processed; they will continue to slowly respond to the changing environments that they encounter over time. As part of the larger project, I selectively re-photograph moments in the evolution of the images, and generate a series of static records of a transitory process which will potentially end in self-destruction. Perhaps where the fugitive cyanotypes are analogies for a terrifyingly fleeting and beautiful existence, the process of re-photographing them is a metaphor for the incorporation and mediation of photography in the contemporary human experience.

Bio:
Born in Atlanta, GA, Meghann Riepenhoff is a photographic artist living in San Francisco. She has been published in Harper’s Magazine, Aperture PhotoBook Review, BOMB Magazine Word Choice, B&W and Color, and Zyzzyva. Her exhibition record includes the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco Camerawork, the Center for Fine Art Photography, The McLoughlin Gallery, Duncan Miller Gallery, the Royal Nonesuch Gallery, the University of Missouri, Regina Rex, Photo Center NW, Atlanta Photography Group Gallery, and El Museo de la Ciudad. Riepenhoff is currently an Affiliate Artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts and has been an artist in residence at the Rayko Photo Center and the Banff Centre for the Arts. Riepenhoff earned her BFA in Photography from the University of Georgia and her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, where she is now visiting faculty.

Artist’s Website: www.meghannriepenhoff.com