Andréanne Michon
What is it like to be a female photographer working in California?
I moved to California to study, to meditate on my art practice and to be challenged by the change of scenery. I knew the history of the pioneer photographers of the West, but when I experienced that landscape for myself it had a profound impact on my work and how I see the world around me. I felt an urgent need to express my own vision of the changing Sierra Nevada. Most of the acknowledged pioneers were men, but of course women have always played a crucial role in the formation of culture. I see my work adding to that tradition, and functioning as a necessary perspective at a time when our environment is going through such radical disruption.
Andréanne Michon discovers the layers of ecosystems and unfolds them for the viewer. She accepts that evolution is inevitable and documents each moment as independent works of art. Her telluric narratives in photography allow the viewer to appreciate individual moments across evergreen plains. Her visual installations encourage a deeper study as the observer becomes a part of her terrestrial beauty. Focused on natural landscapes and ever-changing ecosystems, Michon constructs an identity within the gallery space. Viewers engage nature through images positioned upwards and spanning across the gallery wall as if pieces of the forest are in front of them. Through her work the viewer is introduced to finite pine needles and fallen branches. Michon’s works influence the viewer to become hypersensitive to the environment; introspectively questioning, Do we value the everyday detail of nature? She juxtaposes our technic-infused lives to that of the great and minute in nature that is often overlooked. The viewer connects with large images of dense groves seeing beyond the thumbnail frame of the smart phone. Her intention is to widen this narrowed view encouraging us to break our digital dependence and bask in the ambient light of nature.
Tiffany Talavera is a graduate of MSc program at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. A California native, she has studied Contemporary Art, Curating, and Criticism and works with urban contemporary artists in the Los Angeles area. She has written for the Talbot Rice Gallery and Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh