Barbara Lee Black

Barbara Lee Black has a Master of Fine Arts degree in studio art, with a concentration in fine art photography and digital media. She has received two Artist Fellowship Awards from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Some of her photographs were included in a recent exhibition at the Mobile Museum of Fine Art surveying prominent women fine art photographers in the Southeast. From 2009 until 2018, she taught Digital Media and Photography at the University of Alabama.

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My photographs of ephemeral sculptures give new life and meaning to objects which have been broken, discarded or forgotten. Many of my sculptures incorporate organic materials, subject to decay, so the photograph provides a visual record of a transient moment. I use organic material such as bones, insects, feathers, plants, taxidermy, and the occasional roadkill, as well as manufactured materials such as dolls, china, glass, furniture, and scrap iron. With its ability to preserve a specific moment, the photograph becomes the persistent visual object which allows the subject of my sculpture to live again. Thus, the process of assembling and photographing my sculptures is a rescue mission: to revive, reclaim, revitalize, and recontextualize what others might overlook, discard or reject. I construct and photograph my sculptures in natural settings and in natural light. The devolutionary effects of the environment upon the sculptural materials are integral components of the work. Once photographed, the sculptures are disassembled and the organic materials are returned once again to nature.

Photographs of my sculptures are recorded onto Fujichrome transparency film using a large format camera. The photographs are printed in limited editions on Ilfochrome or chromogenic print material.