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First Place Winner: Curran Hatleberg |
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Curran Hatleberg Statement: These pictures represent a partial record of many long, unhurried intervals of travel across America by car and photographing constantly. The photographs I make, either found or invented, are my own fictionalized version of America and its inhabitants. As pictures, the objects, actions and people that I depict strive to mediate and reimagine the current American experience in hopes of communicating a deeper understanding of our shared time and place. This is an optimistic country. Yet America is afflicted by continuous disintegration and loss. Within the general dissolution of life, there is beauty and mystery. In the fleeting moments of daily life America feels alive with modest hopes and possibility. It is found all around us, coiled in the dusty alleys and derelict storefronts, in smells and voices. A stranger with an interesting life story to tell at a time when you would otherwise have been alone is a warm relief. A scrap of light or the color of a woman’s hair that especially pleases you without being able to say exactly why quickens the heartbeat. Each block’s disarray of unkempt lawns and shabby peeling houses is distinctive, with precise details perfectly articulated. Bumming rides in hot, tired cars with strange passengers spins the senses upward. It is a joy to relinquish each day as unique and final, without a return—to watch the sun setting on a disorderly world. Bio: Curran Hatleberg was born in 1982 in Washington, D.C. and is currently based in Brooklyn, NY. A graduate of the University of Colorado and the Yale School of Art, his work has been shown in galleries both nationally and internationally and is included in multiple collections. He currently teaches photography at the International Center of Photography and Norwalk Community College. Artist’s Website |
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