Raissa Venables
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| Raissa Venables | |
 Red Stairs by Raissa Venables
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| Born | 1977 |
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| Occupation | Artist |
Raïssa Venables, born 1977 in New Paltz, U.S., is a photographic artist based in New York.
Raïssa Venables studied fine arts at the Kansas City Art Institute from 1995 to 1999, where she received her BFA degree. From 1999 to 2002 she studied photography at Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, where she received her MFA degree. She also completed a residency at Galerie SHPN, in Berlin, Germany.
She has had several solo exhibitions at places such as the Kunstverein Ulm and at the Galerie HERRMANN & WAGNER, Berlin, Germany and at the Jersey City Museum, Jersey City in 2005.
[edit] Style
The photographs of Raïssa Venables often depict rooms devoid of people and events. At first glance they resemble film stills, and the affinity to classics by Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, or David Lynch is evident. Everything is copied from reality but distorted into surreal images. Using digital image processing, Venables manipulates the locations to instrumentalize the room with its emptiness and its many interpretations.
Venables uses a complex technique. When she’s found an interesting location she visits it with her camera and takes pictures from every angle. She then rearranges the frames, scans the negatives and composes the picture on the computer. This process resembles the process of a film sequence:
“Even if we decode Venables’ image language, the contents of her pictures, and the creative process, we are still confronted with the mystery of a psychological room – analogous to a movie, whose staged thrill we can’t escape, although we are able to analyze it.” Matthias Harder – Helmut Newton Foundation
It is a concept that reminds one of neo-cubism where the object is split and dissolved and then reassembled, or of the collages by David Hockney.
What is important in Venables' pictures is the mise en scene. She is deeply influenced by Early Renaissance painters especially Flemish painters such as Jan van Eyck or Robert Campin. This influence is seen in Venables' use of colour and lighting, and the way these affect the soul of a room.
[edit] Catalogues and Articles
Raissa Venables, Hatje Cantz, Germany, 96 pages hardcover, Raissa Venables, courtesy of Galerie sphn (HERRMANN & WAGNER)
2007 „Rooms with more than a view“, Local IQ, 29.07.2007, 2007 „Falsche Fluchten, stürzende Perspektiven“, Die Rheinpfalz, Nr. 109, 2007 „Gespentische Räume, die atmen“, Mannheimer Morgen, 12.05.07, 2007 „Manchmal ergeht es einem wie bei einem Film von Hitchcock“, Rhein-Nedar-Zeitung, 31.05.07, 2007 „Falsche Märchen und Geheimnisvolle Räume“, Die Rheinphalz, 24.05.07, 2007 „Mysterious Rooms“ im Kunstverein, Stadtmagazin Neue LU, May-June, 2007 „Mysterious Rooms“, Meier Stadtmagazin, 05.07, p.85, 2007 „Aus den Fugen“, Wirtschafts Woche, No. 20, p.197, 2007 Digitale Dehnübungen, LEO, June 2007, 2007 « Wir sind alle ein bisschen verloren », Weltkunst, no. 6, June 2007, p. 30-32, 2006 „Raissa Venables“ (M. Peschke), Photonews, no. 5, May 2006, 18.Jg., p 18
