Seeking Solace | Rebecca Zeiss
Seeking Solace | Rebecca Zeiss
Artist Statement
Often an artifact will remind us of an event, a person, a time. Some of those artifact items
become precious to us and become containers for memories. These objects and their
people are the stories I seek to photograph and recreate visual representations of the
shared experience.
Some of the stories we care to share less are stories of loss or pain and some we prefer to
share are the moments of epiphanies and amazing experiences. All are the stories I seek. I
have no pre-vision of what the stories will be as I invite each individual or they find me to
share their time and the objects they have chosen. Frequently the objects they select are
because of a past experience or remembering the previous owner. Those kind of artifact
items come to be precious to us and develop into memory vessels housing a recollected
narrative. The participants are photographed anonymously as a torso portrait with their
object, particularly their hands, with a Petzval lens often using a large format camera and
frequently an antiquarian wet plate collodion process. During the session time together
capturing the image, the owners share or don’t share their recalled associations connected
to their memory vessel. As I work with each person, channeling them through what they
choose to share of themselves, their story, their object, I arrive at my version of an
empathic visual as the amalgamation of remembered time performing before us. The
imparting of those stories housed in our memories are re-recalled through the object
images "Seeking Solace" which becomes the artifact reflecting back the shared time
experience.
All participants understand that the art images that are created from their session will
become part of the collective collection Seeking Solace.
Artist Bio
Rebecca Zeiss was born and raised, excepting four years in Belgium as a teen, and still lives in
Midland, Michigan. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan, where, as a painting
and drawing major, she had the opportunity to study under photographer and educator Phil
Davis, causing her to switch the focus of her work to photography. Continuing to experiment
with photographic surfaces and mixed media, she received her MFA in photography from
Central Michigan University. She is now teaching photography and printmaking at the
University of Michigan-Flint. Ms. Zeiss’s photographic work is frequently black-and-white large
format, ranging from installations of elongated vertical hanging panels printed dual-sided on
translucent Japanese Kozo paper to small intimate collodion wet plate work. Often, she utilizes
a range of antiquarian processes combined with contemporary techniques and mixes the look
of the work with the concept/content it re-represents as the trace aura from objects. She
explores tactile surfaces and layering either physically or imagined. Zeiss is influenced by life
experiences of shared vulnerability referencing memory, dreams, and the collective
unconscious. Many of her images examine domestic space and reconsidered childhood
experiences. Her work is included in private collections, museums, universities, and corporate
collections. Rebecca Zeiss is exhibited internationally and has been selected for exhibitions by
jurors such as Jill Enfield, Robert Hirsch, Christopher James, S. Gayle Stevens and Deborah
Willis. Most recently her work was published in Ron Reeders's /Christina Z. Anderson's new
book called Digital negatives with Quad tone Rip.
Often an artifact will remind us of an event, a person, a time. Some of those artifact items
become precious to us and become containers for memories. These objects and their
people are the stories I seek to photograph and recreate visual representations of the
shared experience.
Some of the stories we care to share less are stories of loss or pain and some we prefer to
share are the moments of epiphanies and amazing experiences. All are the stories I seek. I
have no pre-vision of what the stories will be as I invite each individual or they find me to
share their time and the objects they have chosen. Frequently the objects they select are
because of a past experience or remembering the previous owner. Those kind of artifact
items come to be precious to us and develop into memory vessels housing a recollected
narrative. The participants are photographed anonymously as a torso portrait with their
object, particularly their hands, with a Petzval lens often using a large format camera and
frequently an antiquarian wet plate collodion process. During the session time together
capturing the image, the owners share or don’t share their recalled associations connected
to their memory vessel. As I work with each person, channeling them through what they
choose to share of themselves, their story, their object, I arrive at my version of an
empathic visual as the amalgamation of remembered time performing before us. The
imparting of those stories housed in our memories are re-recalled through the object
images "Seeking Solace" which becomes the artifact reflecting back the shared time
experience.
All participants understand that the art images that are created from their session will
become part of the collective collection Seeking Solace.
Artist Bio
Rebecca Zeiss was born and raised, excepting four years in Belgium as a teen, and still lives in
Midland, Michigan. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan, where, as a painting
and drawing major, she had the opportunity to study under photographer and educator Phil
Davis, causing her to switch the focus of her work to photography. Continuing to experiment
with photographic surfaces and mixed media, she received her MFA in photography from
Central Michigan University. She is now teaching photography and printmaking at the
University of Michigan-Flint. Ms. Zeiss’s photographic work is frequently black-and-white large
format, ranging from installations of elongated vertical hanging panels printed dual-sided on
translucent Japanese Kozo paper to small intimate collodion wet plate work. Often, she utilizes
a range of antiquarian processes combined with contemporary techniques and mixes the look
of the work with the concept/content it re-represents as the trace aura from objects. She
explores tactile surfaces and layering either physically or imagined. Zeiss is influenced by life
experiences of shared vulnerability referencing memory, dreams, and the collective
unconscious. Many of her images examine domestic space and reconsidered childhood
experiences. Her work is included in private collections, museums, universities, and corporate
collections. Rebecca Zeiss is exhibited internationally and has been selected for exhibitions by
jurors such as Jill Enfield, Robert Hirsch, Christopher James, S. Gayle Stevens and Deborah
Willis. Most recently her work was published in Ron Reeders's /Christina Z. Anderson's new
book called Digital negatives with Quad tone Rip.
