About
Artist’s Statement
Reduced to its essentials, a black and white photograph is just an image made from the interplay of light and shadow. While it’s vital for the work to communicate on this elemental level, there is also energy emanating from the image, energy first captured by the communion of artist and subject and later interpreted and intuited by the viewer. In creating a piece I am guided both by a desire to capture a particular aesthetic – the design of the shot – and to record the deeper connection between myself, the model and the context that makes the shot possible.
There is no escaping the sensuality of the feminine nude, but the emphasis of my work is never the nudity itself. Rather the uncluttered human form serves as a palette for the numberless nuances made possible by light and shadow, as well as a reminder of who we are under our daily mask of pretense.
To fully engage with my photographs I believe it’s best to see them with a child’s eye, open to amazement by simple things. The purposeful simplicity of my compositions is intended to open the mind and spirit by communicating in unmediated fashion with the viewer. My aspiration is for the viewer to feel the image resonate with the harmony of sensuality and spirit that exists all around us yet we so rarely see.
Stephanie Hogen is a fine-art photographer with a career spanning more than 30 years, with a focus on the evocative intricacies of black-and-white figure studies. Silver gelatin prints, platinum prints local and national exhibitions, with one photograph included in the Louvre, Paris, France. Blurring the boundaries between timeless and fresh, the emphasis of the work is never nudity itself; rather, the uncluttered human form serves as a palette for nuances made possible by light and shadow, as well as a reminder of who we are under our daily mask of pretense.
In the Reno News and Review, Kris Vagner wrote, “The past five years Hogen has added several new bodies of work, with different subject matters. Using occasional insect parts flowers and leaves, just as calm, moody and geometric as her figurative work, with parts abstracted by lighting shifts just as in the model shots. These aren’t exactly photographs, in the traditional sense, they are photograms.”
Her “Lightmosphere” work as she refers to it, is created with a digital camera, different objects and the sun as her light source.
Einstein was right: It is Science meets Art meets Spirituality.
Stephanie elaborates, “Maybe it’s the light and the dark of life, you know, how you have to have the dark to have the light,” she said. “It just speaks to me.”
2018 Simply Nudes Silver Gelatin Photographs, Hub Gallery; Reno,NV
2017 Lightmosphere, Erik Lauritzen Gallery; Reno NV
2017 Black & White Contest Photos: Alternative Printing Process Winner, Photogram #4
2016 Valentine Invitational Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery; Reno, NV
2015 Exposer Awards, Body Collection, Louvre Museum; Paris, France
2015 Exposure: Awards Collections, Body Collection and Book
2009 WAKING DREAMS, First Place, $5,000 Grant Winner, Top Figurative & Digital Images, Ultimate Eye Foundation Peninsula Museum of Art, Belmont, CA
2007 Awakening Dream installation, Nada Dada Motel; Reno, NV
2006 Feeling the Light, Foyer Gallery, LTCC; South Lake Tahoe, CA
2001 Photo 2001, Monique Goldstrom Gallery; New York City, NY