Chris Grismer won Miami Photo Salon Grand Prize Award and Best Creative Image goes to Patty Carroll

Miami Photo Salon announced Awards presented by the Executive Committee of the Salon Festival at the end of Spectrum Miami. The ceremony ended a seven long months of contest participation, selection and preparations for the big event under the Spectrum Miami tent.

Chris Grismer –a Canadian director and producer of film, television and music videos, now residing in Los Angeles– received the 2015 Miami Photo Salon Grand Image Prize valued in $2,500.00. Grismer is the Director of “The Vampire Diaries,” and “Queer As Folk,” among many others. This is what the author has to say about his series: “As I grow older and busier in my work and family life, I find that my memory of the past fades more than I would like. Street photography helps me cope with the fear of forgetting the past by allowing me to visually capture moments that I would like to hold on to. I try to capture the feeling around the moment, the story, the heart of it as much as I can. In a way, it creates a feeling, although false, that I can stop time…that I can live inside these moments by using my camera.”

Isabel Sierra, Miami Photo Salon Executive Director, explained: “The participation in our competition of very well known artists such as Grismer says wonders about the importance the Miami Photo Salon is getting worldwide among visual artists. Chris was very kind to come all the way long from Los Angeles to be with us and visit the Booth S1002 at Spectrum not once but two times. We are glad the jury awarded the Grand Prize to him, and wish him the best in the future.”

Patty Carroll’s subject is the conflation of woman and home. The Adjunct Full Professor of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for 14 years (2000 – 2014) just won the 2015 Creative Image Award with her series Constructed Muses. Carroll defines his work with this statement: “The woman becomes part of her domestic trappings and activities: a commentary on obsession with collecting, accumulating, designing, and decorating, inviting hilarity and pathos about our relationship with ‘things.’ They are installations made in the studio for the camera that play with color, space and scale, and use household objects as subject matter. Growing up in the suburbs provided the basis of all of my work; when life was idealized, and the home was a place of perfection and harmony, without crime, messy interiors, where drapes and sofa matched, and people were ‘normal.’ I am creating worlds that debunk, critique and satirize these myths of claustrophobic perfection.” Patty is currently fundraising for a monograph of the Anonymous Women Series with a Kickstarter Campaign ending on December 18, 2015.

A panel of three jurors that includes Switzerland-based photographer Luc Chessex, Miami-based visual artist Nereida Garcia Ferraz; and Miami-based radio host Pepe Forte, also a graphic designer, and photographer adjudicated three Honorable Mentions. David Jay won Honorable mention with three images originated from INDIVISIBLE, an exhibition of large-scale photographs by this American photographer, sourced from Jay’s multiple, ongoing photographic series The Unknown Soldier, The SCAR Project, and The Alabama Project.

Tornado, Mixed Media 16" x 20” gave Greg Amanti Honorary Mention. The New York’s Hudson River Valley born artist currently works and resides in Denver, where the majority of his work is built on a foundation of string & plaster. The image we saw exhibited in the Salon is a version of the 72 x 60” original.

Cuban born David (REMON) Diaz arrived recently to Miami from Spain and participated in the competition with a strong portfolio of three images taken in Prague, Madrid and Tenerife that speak to the contradictions of the contemporary world. The portfolio valued him the third Mention awarded in this 2015 Edition of the Miami Photo Salon.

Miami Photo Salon Festival is an International Photography Festival that takes place yearly around Miami Art Basel week. Programs  started on November 20th, 2015 with the last closing on January 29th, 2016. Besides the Miami Photo Salon at Spectrum Art Show on Dec 2‐6 already ended, visitors can still enjoy Made in Miami, a contemporary photography group show, that is taking place at Del Castillo Art Studio in Hialeah until December 28. Also, Through the Women’s Eyes, A Celebration of Women Photographers in South Florida is open this week and will close on December 16 only to reopen on January 4th to January 29th of 2016 at the New Professions Technical Institute’s Art Gallery2015.

The Festival is an event put together with the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners. It promotes interaction among the diverse communities across South Florida, and welcome photographers from all over the world participating in the several group exhibits that will take place in Miami-Dade County.

Miami Photo Salon Festival is an event created by Cuban American Phototheque Foundation. In 2012, the Cuban American Phototheque Foundation became incorporated and organized its first Board of Directors. The CAPF is being officially recognized as a 501 (c) (3) not for profit institution. As a nonprofit organization the Foundation is supported by donations, grants, print sales, memberships, support services, educational programming, and workshops.

Awarded images are still available for acquisition at the Miami Photo Salon’s office, since the Festival’s team  is still in the process to pack and return all works of art exhibited to the authors participating in the show.
 
Maria N. Noin
phone 786-5146852

Miami Photo Salon Festival
ATT; Cuban American Phototheque Foundation Inc.
P.O. Box 558454
Miami, FL. 3325

 
 
 
 

Contact Information

Maria N. Noin

Director

Cuban American Phototheque Foundation

miamiphotosalon@gmail.com