Rebekah Modrak
| Rebekah Modrak | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1971 (age 45–46) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | MFA |
| Alma mater | Syracuse University |
| Notable work | Reframing Photography, 2011 |
Rebekah Modrak is an American artist, author, and educator, born in 1971, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
She studied painting and photography at the NYSCC New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, in Alfred, NY and subsequently received an MFA at Syracuse University in Photography. She was a visiting artist on the faculty at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, before joining the full-time faculty at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where she taught as Associate Professor of Photography until 2003 when she joined the faculty at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design. Rebekah Modrak's work has been exhibited at The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh Incident Report and the Sculpture Center in Cleveland.
She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design.
Rebekah Modrak's work as a visual artist involves a struggle between the expected uses of a particular technology or history and her desire to employ that knowledge or system in unintended ways that support the messier dynamics of life. Modrak's original experiments in photography led her to question how the one-point perspective of "reality through a viewfinder" presumes to represent our experience of sight. This work, incorporating photographic images applied to three-dimensional forms, ranges from a series of over life-sized figures to portrait busts. The photographic "skin" in combination with the soft three-dimensional structure it was applied to creates complex portraits of individuals, revealing empathetic character traits through sculptural position, while employing photography's descriptive potential through compound images that document the minutiae of a given sitter with the hyper detail seen through the lens as it captures not only facial expression, but visceral specifics of hair texture and skin quality. As Modrak manipulated photographs to the will of the three-dimensional creatures, she recognized a lapse between this approach to media and the available texts about photography studio practice. In 2011, Modrak published, Reframing Photography, a book that redefines photography (theory, history, and technique) as a more expansive practice utilized by various types of artists, some who do not necessarily define themselves as photographers.
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