© Bastienne Schmidt.

Bastienne Schmidt uses self-portraits to explore female gender identity in popular culture. She photographs herself in the role of a “housewife,” challenging our visions of a domestic utopia by re-staging many disconcertingly familiar scenarios and circumstances. Working in her own home environment of Long Island, Schmidt explores suburban fragmentation and loneliness with the presentation of her housewife character as a wandering, rootless protagonist.

This exhibition was on display at the Southeast Museum of Photography in the fall of 2010 and is currently available as a traveling exhibition organized by SMP.  Her book “Home Stills” was recently released by Jovis Press. -courtesy Southeast Museum.

Related Stories in PDN: Bastienne Schmidt’s Home Stills

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© Rogelio López Marín (Gory)

Cuban artist Rogelio López Marín, also known as Gory, began his career as a painter, gaining recognition from the 1981 exhibition “Volume One” which signified the rise of the Cuban renaissance in visual arts. After working as a photographer for many years at Revolucion y Cultura magazine and winning awards for his photo essays, Gory put down his brushes and dove into the world of photography, manipulating the images by hand. He later used digital manipulations that distinguished his work. Curator and art critic Irinia Leyva says, “Gory’s photographic body of work is indebted to his paintings, establishing between the two media a feedback, a ‘give and take’ from the canvas to the camera and vice versa. His perspicacious eye can discover the most surreal situations in everyday reality, and by capturing them through his lens makes us gaze with fresh eyes.” Gory’s work is now on display at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, FL, coordinated by the Southeast Museum of Photography, until February 4, 2012.

All Photos © Elaine Ling. Above: Nomadic Family in Western Mongolia.

For six years, between 2002 and 2008, photographer Elaine Ling ventured across Mongolia’s Gobi Desert with a large format camera, exploring a culture whose roots were established some 700 years ago, in the 13th century under the rule of Chinggis Khan. Ling’s passion for simple forms and scenes led her to the Gobi in search of a subject scattered throughout: ancient stones. During her five trips to the region, Ling searched for and subsequently photographed Deer Stones, Turkic Stones and the shamanistic stone makers, known as ovoos. In the process, her warm nature opened the hearts and homes of people she encountered. It is this unique access that offers a look at a culture currently experiencing a rebirth of Buddhist traditions nearly lost under Soviet suppression.

Mongolia: Land of the Deer Stone, a book of Ling’s photographs from the region was released by Lodima Books in September 2010. It is a pictorial tribute to a magical and mysterious land, its people, and their traditions.

On Wednesday, September 22, from 5 to 7 pm Elaine Ling will be present at a New York book launch and signing at the Rubin Museum of Art, 150 W. 17th Street. This free event will also feature a Himalayan Happy Hour and Spiral Music series with sounds from around the globe. On Saturday September 25, the exhibition Elaine Ling, Africa and Florida will debut at the Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona Beach, Florida, with a 5 pm artists talk and opening reception to follow. This exhibition is on view through December 16.

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