Jump to content

John Brill (photographer): Difference between revisions

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous edit
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
 
(17 intermediate revisions by 16 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{short description|American photographer|bot=PearBOT 5}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2020}}
{{Infobox person
{{Infobox person
|name = John Brill
|name = John Brill
Line 12: Line 14:
|other_names =
|other_names =
|known_for = Photography
|known_for = Photography
|occupation = [[Photographer]]
|occupation = Photographer
|years_active =
|years_active =
|spouse =
|spouse =
|awards =
|awards =
|box_width =
}}
}}
⚫
'''John Brill''' (born 1951 in [[Newark, New Jersey]]) is an American photographer, known for his conceptual and subversive approach to the techniques and language inherent in the photographic process.<ref>[http://www.kentfineart.net/artists/john-brill Kent Fine Art: John Brill]</ref> John Brill is represented by [[Kent Fine Art]] in New York.

⚫
'''John Brill''' (b. 1951, Newark, New Jersey) is an [[American photographer]], known for his conceptual and subversive approach to the techniques and language inherent in the photographic process.<ref>[http://www.kentfineart.net/artists/john-brill Kent Fine Art: John Brill]</ref>
John Brill is represented by [[Kent Fine Art]] in New York.


==Life==
==Life==
John Brill has been creating photographic records of his everyday existence since 1959. Self-taught in photography, his shift to art in 1981 followed his formal studies within the field of physiological psychology. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, the artist drove a beer truck in the northeast corner of New Jersey, absorbing the raw visual beauty of a vast industrial wasteland, where he began shooting his seminal series of portraits and self-portraits.<ref>[http://www.kentfineart.net/artists/john-brill Kent Fine Art (Artist Page): John Brill]</ref>
John Brill has been creating photographic records of his everyday existence since 1959. Self-taught in photography, his shift to art in 1981 followed his formal studies within the field of physiological psychology. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, the artist drove a beer truck in the northeast corner of New Jersey, absorbing the raw visual beauty of a vast industrial wasteland, where he began shooting his seminal series of portraits and self-portraits.<ref>[http://www.kentfineart.net/artists/john-brill Kent Fine Art (Artist Page): John Brill]</ref> He is a self-taught photographer, who has exhibited regularly since the 1980s when [[Bill Arning]] of [[White Columns]] discovered his work and subsequently gave him his first solo show. Brill has been a school bus driver in Madison, New Jersey for over 20 years and is represented by [[Kent Fine Art]] in New York.<ref>[http://observer.com/2015/01/no-mfa-no-problem-a-look-inside-the-2015-outsider-art-fair/ Brianna McGurran. ''No MFA No Problem: A Look Inside the 2015 Outsider Art Fair''. New York Observer, January 30, 2015]</ref>
He is a self-taught photographer, who has exhibited regularly since the 1980's when [[Bill Arning]] of [[White Columns]] discovered his work and subsequently gave him his first solo show.
Brill has been a school bus driver in Madison, New Jersey for over 20 years and is represented by [[Kent Fine Art]] in New York.<ref>[http://observer.com/2015/01/no-mfa-no-problem-a-look-inside-the-2015-outsider-art-fair/ Brianna McGurran. ''No MFA No Problem: A Look Inside the 2015 Outsider Art Fair''. New York Observer, January 30, 2015]</ref>


==Work==
==Work==


John Brill has created several thematically coherent, discrete bodies of work, which include; ''Family Holiday Album'', ''[[engrams]]'', ''ennui'', ''Reliquary'', and ''Cosmophelia''. Although his œuvre is composed of versatile and separate bodies of work, all of his images have been created with specific regard for their dual role as two-dimensional representations as well as physical art objects.
John Brill has created several thematically coherent, discrete bodies of work, which include; ''Family Holiday Album'', ''engrams'', ''ennui'', ''Reliquary'', and ''Cosmophelia''. Although his œuvre is composed of versatile and separate bodies of work, all of his images have been created with specific regard for their dual role as two-dimensional representations as well as physical art objects.


Leah Ollman reflects on the artist's early work in the introduction to the 2002 monograph, ''The Photography of John Brill'':
Leah Ollman reflects on the artist's early work in the introduction to the 2002 monograph, ''The Photography of John Brill'':<ref>[http://www.kentfineart.net/attachment/en/5374fae0a9aa2cd3748b4568/Press/5374faeea9aa2cd3748b4647 Leah Ollman. The Photography of John Brill. New York, N.Y: Kent Gallery, 2002.]</ref>


''{{Hanging indent |text="Beginning with staged portraits and self-portraits, his imagery became increasingly nebulous, reflecting his interest “in how resonance could remain unaffected by the systematic removal of content.” Toward the end of the 1980s, he began seriously toying with the idea of the “thoughtograph.” He scavenged for pictures, made some from life and others from the television screen, then worked to distance the images from their origins through multiple printings, fragmentation, tonal shifts and value reversals. In the end, the pictures derive more from mind than from matter. They're projections of his will, contrived out of pure desire. Physical representations of the incorporeal."}}'' <ref>[http://www.kentfineart.net/attachment/en/5374fae0a9aa2cd3748b4568/Press/5374faeea9aa2cd3748b4647 Leah Ollman. The Photography of John Brill. New York, N.Y: Kent Gallery, 2002.]</ref>
{{quote|Beginning with staged portraits and self-portraits, his imagery became increasingly nebulous, reflecting his interest "in how resonance could remain unaffected by the systematic removal of content." Toward the end of the 1980s, he began seriously toying with the idea of the "thoughtograph." He scavenged for pictures, made some from life and others from the television screen, then worked to distance the images from their origins through multiple printings, fragmentation, tonal shifts and value reversals. In the end, the pictures derive more from mind than from matter. They're projections of his will, contrived out of pure desire. Physical representations of the incorporeal."}}


He is present in every step of the creative process, from taking the picture, printing, cutting the glass, and framing the images. Although each of the images he produces necessarily begins its genesis with pure camera vision, all of them undergo an extensive process of post-exposure construction, transcending the seminal act of exposure and inevitably culminating in a polar extreme on the continuum of image transformation. As stated in the text that accompanied his exhibition, ''Cosmophilia'' (2003), "The image that is ultimately perceived in the final print is not merely an interpretation of the original camera vision, but is an image—as well as physical object—that exists entirely on its own terms." <ref>[http://www.kentfineart.net/attachment/en/5374fae0a9aa2cd3748b4568/Press/5374faeea9aa2cd3748b4651 John Brill: ''Cosmophelia'' at Kent Fine Art, 2003]</ref>His love of the process is apparent in his work as he shamelessly pursues new methods of printing and takes risks in creating his work. Some images he prints repeatedly, others he covers in wax, and still others he forms in a process of development that nearly overexposes his subject. <ref>[http://www.donttakepictures.com/dtp-blog/2015/2/9/special-finds-at-the-outsider-art-fair SPECIAL FINDS AT THE OUTSIDER ART FAIR by Rodger Thompson, February 11, 2015]</ref>
He is present in every step of the creative process, from taking the picture, printing, cutting the glass, and framing the images. Although each of the images he produces necessarily begins its genesis with pure camera vision, all of them undergo an extensive process of post-exposure construction, transcending the seminal act of exposure and inevitably culminating in a polar extreme on the continuum of image transformation. As stated in the text that accompanied his exhibition, ''Cosmophilia'' (2003), "The image that is ultimately perceived in the final print is not merely an interpretation of the original camera vision, but is an image—as well as physical object—that exists entirely on its own terms."<ref>[http://www.kentfineart.net/attachment/en/5374fae0a9aa2cd3748b4568/Press/5374faeea9aa2cd3748b4651 John Brill: ''Cosmophelia'' at Kent Fine Art, 2003]</ref> His love of the process is apparent in his work as he shamelessly pursues new methods of printing and takes risks in creating his work. Some images he prints repeatedly, others he covers in wax, and still others he forms in a process of development that nearly overexposes his subject.<ref>[http://www.donttakepictures.com/dtp-blog/2015/2/9/special-finds-at-the-outsider-art-fair SPECIAL FINDS AT THE OUTSIDER ART FAIR by Rodger Thompson, February 11, 2015]</ref>


==Exhibitions==
==Exhibitions==


===Solo===
SOLO EXHIBITIONS


2006 - Bad Memory, Kent Gallery, New York
*2006: Bad Memory, Kent Gallery, New York
2003 - Cosmophilia, Kent Gallery, New York
*2003: Cosmophilia, Kent Gallery, New York
2000 - Reliquary, Kent Gallery, New York
*2000: Reliquary, Kent Gallery, New York; Reliquary, Solomon Projects, Atlanta
⚫
*1997: ennui, Kent Gallery, New York
Reliquary, Solomon Projects, Atlanta
1997 - ennui, Kent Gallery, New York
*1995: engrams, Kent Gallery, New York
⚫
*1990: Family Holiday Album, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York 1988 Selected photographs, 1981–1987, The Sherman H. Masten Gallery, County College of Morris, Randolph, NJ
⚫
1995 - engrams, Kent Gallery, New York
*1986: Selected Self-Portraits, 1981–1984, White Columns, New York
⚫
1990 - Family Holiday Album, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York1988 Selected photographs, 1981-1987, The Sherman H. Masten Gallery, County College of Morris, Randolph, NJ
1986 - Selected Self-Portraits, 1981-1984, White Columns, New York
*1982: Twelve Self-Portraits, International Center of Photography, Education Gallery, New York
1982 - Twelve Self-Portraits, International Center of Photography, Education Gallery, New York


===Group exhibitions===
GROUP EXHIBITIONS


2012 - The Limits of Photography, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago, Chicago
*2012: The Limits of Photography, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago, Chicago
2010 - About Face, Edward Thorp Gallery, New York
*2010: About Face, Edward Thorp Gallery, New York
2007 - Close Looking, Kent Gallery, New York
*2007: Close Looking, Kent Gallery, New York
2006 - Urban Cosmologies, Kent Gallery, New York
*2006: Urban Cosmologies, Kent Gallery, New York
2005 - The Constructed Image, Kent Gallery, New York
*2005: The Constructed Image, Kent Gallery, New York
2003 - New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ
*2003: New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ
2002 - Endless Summer, Kent Gallery, New York
*2002: Endless Summer, Kent Gallery, New York
2001 - Vox, Kent Gallery, New York
*2001: Vox, Kent Gallery, New York
2000 - The UFO Show, University Gallery, Illinois State University, Normal, IL (catalogue)
*2000: The UFO Show, University Gallery, Illinois State University, Normal, IL (catalogue)
1999 - Dream Architecture, Kent Gallery, New York
*1999: Dream Architecture, Kent Gallery, New York; Faces & Places, City Gallery East, Atlanta, GA; The Xmas Project, Kent Gallery, New York
⚫
*1998 : The Waking Dream: Psychological Realism in Contemporary Art, Castle Gallery, The College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY
Faces & Places, City Gallery East, Atlanta, GA
The Xmas Project, Kent Gallery, New York
*1997: Portraits: 19th and 20th Century Photography, Marlborough Gallery, New York
*1996: Black and White Unfixed, Nancy Solomon Gallery, Atlanta, GA; Difference, Kent Gallery, New York; New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, The Noyes Museum, Oceanville, NJ (catalogue); White Columns 1996 Benefit Exhibition, White Columns, New York; Light into Darkness, Kent Gallery, New York
⚫
1998 - The Waking Dream: Psychological Realism in Contemporary Art, Castle Gallery, The College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY
⚫
*1995: Fact, Fiction and Truth: Contemporary Portraits, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY (catalogue); the camera i: Photographic Self-portraits from the Audry and Sydney Irmas Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (catalogue); (untitled group show), Tom Cugliani Gallery, New York
1997 - Portraits: 19th and 20th Century Photography, Marlborough Gallery, New York
⚫
*1993: Contacts/Proofs, The Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ
1996 - Black and White Unfixed, Nancy Solomon Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Difference, Kent Gallery, New York
*1991: Fact or Fantasy, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York
New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, The Noyes Museum, Oceanville, NJ (catalogue)
*1990: New Life, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York; Brut 90, White Columns, New York; Twentieth Anniversary Benefit Exhibition, White Columns, New York; Heads, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York; New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts, Summit, NJ (catalogue)
⚫
*1989: Selected Photographs: Recent Acquisitions, The Brooklyn Museum
White Columns 1996 Benefit Exhibition, White Columns, New York
⚫
*1988: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Life, Coup de Grace Gallery, Hoboken, NJ
Light into Darkness, Kent Gallery, New York
⚫
*1986–87 Update, White Columns, New York (catalogue) New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, The Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ
1995 - Fact, Fiction and Truth: Contemporary Portraits, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY (catalogue)
⚫
*1985: Image Making, Pavilion Gallery, Mount Holly, NJ (catalogue)
⚫
the camera i: Photographic Self-portraits from the Audry and Sydney Irmas Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (catalogue)
(untitled group show), Tom Cugliani Gallery, New York
*1984: (untitled group show), Oggi-Domani, New York
⚫
*1982: The World Within, The World Without, The Simon Gallery, Montclair, NJ
⚫
1993 - Contacts/Proofs, The Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ
1991 - Fact or Fantasy, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York
1990 - New Life, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York
Brut 90, White Columns, New York
Twentieth Anniversary Benefit Exhibition, White Columns, New York
Heads, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York
New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts, Summit, NJ (catalogue)
⚫
1989 - Selected Photographs: Recent Acquisitions, The Brooklyn Museum
⚫
1988 - Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Life, Coup de Grace Gallery, Hoboken, NJ
⚫
1986-87 Update, White Columns, New York (catalogue) New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, The Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ
⚫
1985 - Image Making, Pavilion Gallery, Mount Holly, NJ (catalogue)
1984 - (untitled group show), Oggi-Domani, New York
⚫
1982 - The World Within, The World Without, The Simon Gallery, Montclair, NJ


==References==
==References==


{{reflist}}
<references />

{{Authority control}}


{{Persondata
| NAME = Brill, John
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
| SHORT DESCRIPTION = American photographer
| DATE OF BIRTH = 1951
| PLACE OF BIRTH = [[Newark, New Jersey]]
| DATE OF DEATH =
| PLACE OF DEATH =
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brill, John}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brill, John}}
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:1951 births]]
[[Category:1951 births]]
[[Category:Outsider Artists]]
[[Category:American outsider artists]]
[[Category:American Photographers]]
[[Category:American portrait photographers]]
[[Category:Portrait photographers]]
[[Category:Photographers from New Jersey]]
[[Category:Photographers from New Jersey]]
[[Category:American Artists]]

Latest revision as of 11:00, 7 April 2024

John Brill
John Brill in his installation of "Every Boy's Dream" at the Outsider Art Fair in New York (2015)
Born1951 (age 72–73)
Newark, New Jersey
OccupationPhotographer
Known forPhotography

John Brill (born 1951 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American photographer, known for his conceptual and subversive approach to the techniques and language inherent in the photographic process.[1] John Brill is represented by Kent Fine Art in New York.

Life

[edit]

John Brill has been creating photographic records of his everyday existence since 1959. Self-taught in photography, his shift to art in 1981 followed his formal studies within the field of physiological psychology. From the mid-1970s through the 1980s, the artist drove a beer truck in the northeast corner of New Jersey, absorbing the raw visual beauty of a vast industrial wasteland, where he began shooting his seminal series of portraits and self-portraits.[2] He is a self-taught photographer, who has exhibited regularly since the 1980s when Bill Arning of White Columns discovered his work and subsequently gave him his first solo show. Brill has been a school bus driver in Madison, New Jersey for over 20 years and is represented by Kent Fine Art in New York.[3]

Work

[edit]

John Brill has created several thematically coherent, discrete bodies of work, which include; Family Holiday Album, engrams, ennui, Reliquary, and Cosmophelia. Although his œuvre is composed of versatile and separate bodies of work, all of his images have been created with specific regard for their dual role as two-dimensional representations as well as physical art objects.

Leah Ollman reflects on the artist's early work in the introduction to the 2002 monograph, The Photography of John Brill:[4]

Beginning with staged portraits and self-portraits, his imagery became increasingly nebulous, reflecting his interest "in how resonance could remain unaffected by the systematic removal of content." Toward the end of the 1980s, he began seriously toying with the idea of the "thoughtograph." He scavenged for pictures, made some from life and others from the television screen, then worked to distance the images from their origins through multiple printings, fragmentation, tonal shifts and value reversals. In the end, the pictures derive more from mind than from matter. They're projections of his will, contrived out of pure desire. Physical representations of the incorporeal."

He is present in every step of the creative process, from taking the picture, printing, cutting the glass, and framing the images. Although each of the images he produces necessarily begins its genesis with pure camera vision, all of them undergo an extensive process of post-exposure construction, transcending the seminal act of exposure and inevitably culminating in a polar extreme on the continuum of image transformation. As stated in the text that accompanied his exhibition, Cosmophilia (2003), "The image that is ultimately perceived in the final print is not merely an interpretation of the original camera vision, but is an image—as well as physical object—that exists entirely on its own terms."[5] His love of the process is apparent in his work as he shamelessly pursues new methods of printing and takes risks in creating his work. Some images he prints repeatedly, others he covers in wax, and still others he forms in a process of development that nearly overexposes his subject.[6]

Exhibitions

[edit]

Solo

[edit]
  • 2006: Bad Memory, Kent Gallery, New York
  • 2003: Cosmophilia, Kent Gallery, New York
  • 2000: Reliquary, Kent Gallery, New York; Reliquary, Solomon Projects, Atlanta
  • 1997: ennui, Kent Gallery, New York
  • 1995: engrams, Kent Gallery, New York
  • 1990: Family Holiday Album, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York 1988 Selected photographs, 1981–1987, The Sherman H. Masten Gallery, County College of Morris, Randolph, NJ
  • 1986: Selected Self-Portraits, 1981–1984, White Columns, New York
  • 1982: Twelve Self-Portraits, International Center of Photography, Education Gallery, New York

Group exhibitions

[edit]
  • 2012: The Limits of Photography, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College Chicago, Chicago
  • 2010: About Face, Edward Thorp Gallery, New York
  • 2007: Close Looking, Kent Gallery, New York
  • 2006: Urban Cosmologies, Kent Gallery, New York
  • 2005: The Constructed Image, Kent Gallery, New York
  • 2003: New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ
  • 2002: Endless Summer, Kent Gallery, New York
  • 2001: Vox, Kent Gallery, New York
  • 2000: The UFO Show, University Gallery, Illinois State University, Normal, IL (catalogue)
  • 1999: Dream Architecture, Kent Gallery, New York; Faces & Places, City Gallery East, Atlanta, GA; The Xmas Project, Kent Gallery, New York
  • 1998 : The Waking Dream: Psychological Realism in Contemporary Art, Castle Gallery, The College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY
  • 1997: Portraits: 19th and 20th Century Photography, Marlborough Gallery, New York
  • 1996: Black and White Unfixed, Nancy Solomon Gallery, Atlanta, GA; Difference, Kent Gallery, New York; New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, The Noyes Museum, Oceanville, NJ (catalogue); White Columns 1996 Benefit Exhibition, White Columns, New York; Light into Darkness, Kent Gallery, New York
  • 1995: Fact, Fiction and Truth: Contemporary Portraits, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY (catalogue); the camera i: Photographic Self-portraits from the Audry and Sydney Irmas Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (catalogue); (untitled group show), Tom Cugliani Gallery, New York
  • 1993: Contacts/Proofs, The Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ
  • 1991: Fact or Fantasy, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York
  • 1990: New Life, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York; Brut 90, White Columns, New York; Twentieth Anniversary Benefit Exhibition, White Columns, New York; Heads, Coup de Grace Gallery, New York; New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts, Summit, NJ (catalogue)
  • 1989: Selected Photographs: Recent Acquisitions, The Brooklyn Museum
  • 1988: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Life, Coup de Grace Gallery, Hoboken, NJ
  • 1986–87 Update, White Columns, New York (catalogue) New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, The Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ
  • 1985: Image Making, Pavilion Gallery, Mount Holly, NJ (catalogue)
  • 1984: (untitled group show), Oggi-Domani, New York
  • 1982: The World Within, The World Without, The Simon Gallery, Montclair, NJ

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Kent Fine Art: John Brill
  2. ^ Kent Fine Art (Artist Page): John Brill
  3. ^ Brianna McGurran. No MFA No Problem: A Look Inside the 2015 Outsider Art Fair. New York Observer, January 30, 2015
  4. ^ Leah Ollman. The Photography of John Brill. New York, N.Y: Kent Gallery, 2002.
  5. ^ John Brill: Cosmophelia at Kent Fine Art, 2003
  6. ^ SPECIAL FINDS AT THE OUTSIDER ART FAIR by Rodger Thompson, February 11, 2015
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=John_Brill_(photographer)&oldid=1217703039"