Edie Bresler

Images by Edie Bresler

When photographer Edie Bresler sets up to photograph, she begins by cutting, pinning and sewing a fiberglass window screen, borrowing techniques from the quilting and embroidery traditions.She then creates photographs by shooting through the screen to capture the landscape outside.A collection of her unusual photographs will be on display in Griffin Museum's Emerging Artist Gallery, April 24 - May 27.

Some of the imagery Bresler embeds in the screens is invented and some is inspired by chance encounters with books found in local public libraries, especially in the natural history section.She might begin with a word, such as "migration", and looking up the word may prompt a further exploration into "mazes" and then "mates" and finally "the Milky Way".Bresler surrenders to the flow of her creative juices.Her open-ended journeys lead to unexpected, intricate layers and visual metaphors illustrating the playful and spontaneous nature of the artistic process.

Once the screen is made, Bresler places the screen back into the window and photographs the now manufactured environment in its natural surroundings.Her color photographs will hang next to cyanotypes that she has created from the window screens themselves.Using the screen as a negative and by creating an emulsion mixed from combinations of Ferric ammonium citrate, Potassium Ferricyanide and distilled water; Bresler exposes her image onto rag paper using

ultra-violet light or sunlight.The final processed image is comprised of pale to deep blue tones that Bresler imbues with primitive stitching and other artifacts.

Bresler's photographs are included in many private and public collections, including the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Fidelity Bank, and Polaroid Corporation, and she has exhibited her work throughout the US and abroad.A graduate of the School of Visual Arts and a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, Bresler is currently on the faculty at Simmons College in the department of Art & Music.