suburban dreams
Beth Yarnelle Edwards

exhibition venue: The Courtyard

I’m fascinated by the signs and symbols of contemporary life. I’m interested in relationships between people, the spaces they inhabit and their possessions. My photographs are visual explorations of people, places and things in middle-class California suburbs during the last decade of the twentieth century and the beginning of the next.

In this work, I’m trying to locate the place where the mythic intersects with the mundane, where dream merges with reality. Doing this requires me to construct a certain kind of fiction, so that despite the real appearance of my images and their philosophical truth, I don’t spend much time thinking about documentary tradition. Instead, I am inspired by many different things, including 17th century genre painting, contemporary cinema, performance and even installation.

Biography / curriculum vitae:
Education:
1998 Master of Fine Arts in Photography San Jose State University, California, USA
1980 Master of Arts in Teaching English as a Second/Foreign La n g u a g e San Francisco State University, California, USA

Positions held:
Current: Fine Art Photographer, Freelance Editorial and Portrait Photographer;
Former: Taught English as a Second Language
and Coorperative Education

Exhibitions solo:

2002 Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Pittsburgh, PA
2001 Noorderlicht Photofestival, Netherlands; 14eme Rencontres Photographiques, Lorient, France; Rencontres Photographiques en Sud Gironde Langon, France; City of Las Vegas Cultural Affairs, Nevada; Photographic Image Gallery, Portland, Oregon;
1999 Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle, Washington; Centro Colombo Americano, Medellin, Colombia;
1998 CEPA Gallery Satellite, Buffalo, New York;
Davis Art Center, Davis, CA

Exhibitions group:

2002 Encontro da Imagem Braga, Portugal; London
Photographic Awards: 2001 Social Landscape Gallery Sink, Denver, Colorado; Center for Photography at Woodstock, New York; Museet for Fotokunst, Odense, Denmark; Copenhagen Contemporary Art Centre, Denmark; Society for Contemp. Photography, Kansas City, MO

2000 Salon International de la Recherche Photographique De Royan, France (gran prix winner); London Photographic Awards III; Photo
Americas, Portland Oregon

Publications:
2002 Photo Technik International, Germany;
2001 Photo Nouvelles, France; Revisited, Netherlands (catalog); Habitants, Habites, Habitus, France (catalog);
2000 European Photography, Germany; FotoMAGAZIN, Germany; Photo Metro, US; StudioNOTES,
US; London Photographic Awards, Vol. 3 (book); 1999 New York Times Magazine; Harper’s Magazine; The New Yorker

Awards:
2002 The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Visual Arts Award;
2001 Ruttenberg Arts Foundation Award; Current Works 2001 Excellence Award;
2000 Salon International de la Recherche Photographique; Royan, France Gran Prix;
1999 Santa Fe Center for Visual Arts 1999 Project Competition Winner.

For further information on Beth Yarnelle Edwards 's work visit this web site: www.noorderlicht.com/eng/fest01/visited/edwards/
[the hereford photography festival is not responsible for the contents of these external sites. If you encounter a broken link please inform the webmaster]