EMILY BERL – www.emilyberlphoto.com
Artist Interview by Juan Madrid
This is an open series of interviews with the artists in the Photography Now 2017 exhibition.
“ I began to think of Marilyn’s story as a symbol for this place people come to in order to achieve fame, the promise and peril of the Hollywood Dream represented in one life.“
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1. Where are you from, and what is your background in photography? How did you get into photography?
I’m originally from Washington, DC, but I currently live in Los Angeles, CA. I starting photography in high school and then went on to study photojournalism and art history at Boston University. After college, I interned at a daily paper in New Hampshire and then worked on the news side of photography for a few years in New York before transitioning over to editorial work and documentary portraiture.
2. What inspired you to make the work in Photography Now 2017? What is the work about? Please describe one piece, the evolution of the concept, and the process?
My work in Photography Now 2017 is from my project Marilyn, which looks into the lasting legacy of Marilyn Monroe. This project began as an exploration of my new home. I moved to Los Angeles in 2012 with a television writer and an actor, both in pursuit of the Hollywood Dream. Los Angeles as a place that attracts people chasing their dreams fascinated me, and I began to search for a way to represent that idea visually. Soon, I started to notice the face of Marilyn Monroe everywhere: T-shirts, murals, magazines. Her image was so ubiquitous that it blended into everyday life. I began to think of Marilyn’s story as a symbol for this place people come to in order to achieve fame, the promise and peril of the Hollywood Dream represented in one life.
3. Much of the work in Photography Now 2017 seems to describe a distance between the subject and the viewer, a disconnection, and/or a dystopian situation. How do you think your work relates to these ideas?
Honestly, I’m not sure if my work relates to those ideas thematically. My photos attempt to portray the subjects how they wish to be seen. My goal is to not direct them too much, but rather provide an accurate picture of who they are. They’re not quite a collaboration, but there is an honesty that I strive for in my work. Composition wise, there is distance in the photographs, but I feel that is mostly an attempt to place the subject in an environment and show some of the space and how they interact in it.
4. What are you working on now?
Right now, I’m putting together a book for “Marilyn” that will be published in April 2018. I’m really excited because this is my fist photo book and it’s a new and challenging process for me. Additionally, I’m starting a couple other projects that I hope will be an extension of this one, but they’re still in the planning phases.
5. What is the one photograph you always wanted to make but never could?
On man, that’s hard. I guess I’d rather think about it as what photograph I haven’t made but would still like to. In that case, being largely a portrait photographer, it would be people who I hope to photograph in the future. I’ve always wanted to take Joan Didion’s picture, and honestly, I’d love to photograph Kim Kardashian. I think she’s one of the most interesting and influential people of the current generation.
General exhibition information:
Photography Now 2017
November 4, 2017 – January 14, 2018
Juried by William Ewing
Featured Artists: Lars Anderson, Sarah Anthony, Ben Arnon, Sandra Bacchi, John Barnard, Emily Berl, Adam Bernard, Christopher Paul Brown, Tianqiutao Chen, Jennifer Garza-Cuen, Orestes Gonzalez, Tamar Granovsky, Alejandro Loureiro Lorenzo, Jeanette May, Zora Murff, Laurie Peek, Ceaphas Stubbs and Ayumi Tanaka.
See full exhibition information or exhibition guide (issuu.com).
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