All images by Luís Filipe Branco

Spring is on the horizon and I am looking forward to Month of Photography in Denver in March. I will be showing my performative works produced with Portuguese photographer Luís Filipe Branco in several shows in Denver. We will be exhibiting THE UNKNOWN HEROINE at Michael Warren Contemporary March 9th to April 17th. THE UNKNOWN HEROINE is a photographic and book project that I initiated with Luís in Holland in 2019 while at the Obras Artist Residency in Renkum. We will exhibit this project as an installation of photographs and text at Michael Warren Contemporary. I am also producing a beautiful book of text and images with the help of Cydney Payton and my step – son and brilliant book designer Joseph Logan, with accompanying essays by French artist Claude Cahun and Cydney Payton. The book will be available during the exhibition. I will be posting more about this project, the book and the exhibit, as Month of Photography draws nearer.

I will also be exhibiting several of the works I have made with Luís in Portugal in three different Month of Photography group exhibitions in Denver. Following is a selection of works made at OBRAS – Portugal in the spring of 2019 with Luís Branco. Looking at this group of images I think – who is that scantily clothed woman? She is so free and unconstrained in the landscape. It is as if I become someone else in Portugal, I seemingly transform, I am reborn into many different women – Incarnations / Encarnações. This body of work is particularly poignant to me this spring, as I view this older woman (me) in the verdant spring landscape. This rural region in Portugal, the Alentejo, is close to my heart. Portugal is now undergoing a very difficult time with the pandemic. We will be exhibiting these works in 2022 in Portugal in a large exhibit of Luís Branco and my work made in the Alentejo over the last 6 years – “The Mirror Between Us”  in the beautiful Igreja de Sao Vicente in Evora. This exhibit has been rescheduled with the Municipality of Evora for spring of 2022 because of the covid pandemic.

The woman is ghostly/ mysterious in the b&w image Outside Woman I. There is a kind of reverse voyeurism going on when Luís shot from the inside out. This work will be shown in the exhibit “Eye of the Camera – Myths and Legends” at the Littleton Museum March 19^th to April 26^th juried by John Barnabas Lake.

Nude Chair was selected for the fabulous ongoing Mark Sink project THE BIG PICTURE 2021. THE BIG PICTURE is a massive undertaking which Mark leads – grand scale contemporary photography is gathered from artists around the world and expanded as Xerox prints that are displayed in galleries and in outdoor locations throughout Denver and around the globe.

Luís and I made this image on the 25^th of April, 2019. This is the date celebrated in Portugal as the date in 1974 of the “Carnation Revolution.” This is when the military and civil resistance in Portugal overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime and thus began the Portuguese democracy. Carnations were offered to the soldiers and placed in their gun muzzles and on the lapels of their uniforms.

This work Shepherd’s Umbrella, will be exhibiting at Redline Contemporary Art Center in the large group exhibit “Shame Radiant,” conceived and curated by Todd Herman. The Alentejo region of Portugal is known for it’s cork trees, vineyards and the sheep and pigs and cows that inhabit the region. This really is a shepherd’s umbrella.

This work Seat at Evoramonte will be exhibiting at the Littleton Museum in the “Myths and Legends” exhibit. This image was taken on the mountaintop at Evoramonte in Portugal. This is a magical mountain with a castle on the top and one of my favorite places in Portugal. I have incarnated in several forms on this mountain . . .

I am excited to be exhibiting in Colorado this spring. Month of Photography programmers, Michael Warren Contemporary and all the galleries and museums are doing extraordinary jobs at keeping culture going safely; timed openings, zoom artist talks, instagram everything … We owe much to these tireless cultural workers for all their efforts over the last year. Big air hugs to all!