Sheila Pree Bright

Sheila Pree Bright
Born 1967
Known for Fine Art Photography
Movement Photography
Website http://www.sheilapreebright.com/

Sheila Pree Bright is an Atlanta-based, award-winning American photographer best known for her works Plastic Bodies, Suburbia, and Young Americans.[1]

Early life and education

Sheila Pree Bright was born in Waycross, GA in 1967.[2] As a member of a military family, she spent her early childhood in Germany and later moved back to the United States, moving between several states including Colorado and Kansas. None of these locations had significant black populations, a fact that would later inform her work.[3] She earned a BS from the University of Missouri in 1998.[2] Her initial interest in photography began while taking a photojournalism class during her senior year of college. She moved to Atlanta in 1997 and received her MFA from Georgia State University in 2003.[4]

Career

Sheila Pree Bright is often described as a "Cultural Anthropologist."[5][6][7] Her earliest experience as a photographer began when she spent time in Houston where she began photographing the gangsta rap scene and confronting the dynamic between Hip hop and gun culture.[3] In 2003, she created her MFA thesis photo series, Plastic Bodies, which would later be featured in the film Through the Lens Darkly and go viral on Huffington Post in 2013.[8] In these photographs, she manipulated images of black women and barbie dolls in an attempt to challenge the western ideals of whiteness and beauty and explore the impact these ideals have on girls and women of color.[9] Bright later earned national acclaim when she won the Center Prize at the Santa Fe Center of Photography in 2006 for her Suburbia series[10] which features images of African American suburban life. In 2008, she premiered her first solo exhibition at the High Museum of Art, featuring her series Young Americans. These photographers were a response to the commonly negative portrayals of Millennials. She allowed her subjects to use their own props, clothes, and poses in an attempt to "give them a platform to speak for themselves."[11]

Bright was selected for the Museum of Contemporary of Art of Georgia's Working Artist Project in 2014,[6] during which she created her series 1960Who. In this work, she created portraits of several civil rights activists of the 60s and 70s, including Dr. Roslyn Pope, Lonnie King, Herman Russel, Charles Person, and Claire O'Connor. In addition to the museum exhibition, she plastered these portraits on large public walls throughout downtown Atlanta in honor and celebration of their activism.[12] In 2014 and 2015, Bright visited Ferguson and Baltimore after the murders of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray to photograph and document the protests. The culmination of these photos would become her series 1960Now.[13]

Work

Collections

  • Smithsonian National Museum of African American History, Washington, DC
  • Oppenheimer Collection: Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland, KS
  • National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Atlanta, GA
  • de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
  • BET Collection, New York, NY
  • Library of Congress, Washington DC
  • Sprint PCS Art Collection, Sprint Corporation, Overland, KS
  • The Amistad Center for Art & Culture at The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford CT
  • Diggs Gallery, Winston-Salem State University, Winston-Salem, NC
  • The Paul Jones Collection, Birmingham, AL
  • High Museum of Art, Atlanta GA
  • Museum of Contemporary Art, Atlanta, GA[14]
  • King & Spalding Art Collection, Atlanta GA
  • Lucinda Bunnen Photography, Atlanta, GA
  • Clark Atlanta University Galleries, Atlanta, GA
  • Spelman Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
  • Hammond House Museum, Atlanta GA[1]

Awards, Fellowships and Residencies

  • 2018 SPE Imagemaker Award, Cleveland, OH
  • 2016 Creative Time, Commission, New York, NY
  • 2016 Campaign for Black Male Achievement Organization, Instagram campaign New York, NY
  • 2016 GM Chevrolet Malibu Commercial, Discover the Unexpected
  • 2015 Proclamation, Atlanta City Council, Atlanta, GA
  • 2015 FluxNightDream2015, Commission, Atlanta, GA
  • 2014 Museum of Contemporary Art; Working Artist Grant, Atlanta, GA
  • 2014 Artist Residency, Reginald F Lewis Museum, Baltimore, MD
  • 2013 Recipient of Elevate 2013 A Public Art Experience Grant, Atlanta, GA
  • 2012 Recipient of Idea Capital Grant - Project 1960 Atlanta, GA
  • 2012 Delta Sigma Theta Celebration of Women Torch Award, Atlanta, GA
  • 2010 Save The Art Awards, Greensboro, NC
  • 2009 The Loridans Arts Encouragement Award, Atlanta,GA
  • 2008 Artist-in Residency: The Mozely Park Project, Atlanta, GA
  • 2008 Aetna Foundation Grant: Artscool, Young Americans Project: Mayor Youth Atlanta, GA
  • 2007 Artist-in-Residency: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art Hartford, CT
  • 2006 Santa Fe Prize, Santa Fe Center for Photography, Santa Fe, NM
  • 2002 Fellow: National Graduate Seminar, The International Photography Institute, NY, NY
  • 2001 National Bronica Award, Tamron USA, New York, NY
  • 1999 New Works Photography Award, En Foco, Inc., Bronx, NY[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Sheila Pree Bright".
  2. 1 2 "Sheila Pree Bright Biography – Sheila Pree Bright on artnet". www.artnet.com. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  3. 1 2 "Sheila Pree Bright's look at "Suburbia" in an unlikely place". Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  4. ↑ bright, sheila pree. "sheila pree bright on about.me". about.me. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  5. ↑ "Sheila Pree Bright". Flux Projects. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  6. 1 2 "Sheila Pree Bright - MOCA GA". MOCA GA. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  7. ↑ "Sheila Pree Bright: In the Eye of Change". BURNAWAY. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  8. ↑ "Sheila Pree Bright". Agnes Scott College website. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  9. ↑ "These Startling Images Will Make You Think Differently About Beauty". The Huffington Post. 2013-11-22. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  10. ↑ "Sheila Pree Bright". 2010biennial.fotofest.org. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  11. ↑ "Photographer Sheila Pree Bright's Young Americans". High Museum of Art.
  12. ↑ "Photographer Sheila Pree Bright Puts Civil Rights Activists In Your Face In Downtown Atlanta". The Huffington Post. 2013-11-16. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  13. ↑ "Project1960". Project1960. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
  14. ↑ "Sheila Pree Bright - MOCA GA". MOCA GA. Retrieved 2016-03-05.
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