Curiouser and Curiouser: Photographic Dreams and Fictions

Juror's Statement

The Curiouser and Curiouser submission selections unfolded to me like an abstract narrative resembling Carroll's Wonderland but more like the world of Czech director Jan Švankmajer's film Alice. For this exhibit we find ourselves in a prolific alternative reality created by the collective conscience of photographers that peeks into a less innocent side of Alice much like Švankmajer's vision. My goal is to challenge the viewers to link the images and conjure their own fairytales as they walk through the space these photographs inhabit. It was a great pleasure to have the opportunity to look inside these photographers' psyche for just a moment and get a glimpse of their creative prestige.

- Blue Mitchell

About the Juror

Blue Mitchell is an independent publisher, curator, educator, and photographer. Based in Portland, Oregon, he has been involved with many facets of the photographic arts. Mitchell received his BFA from Oregon College of Art & Craft where he has taught studio school classes and workshops. In his personal work he implements many photographic techniques including toy cameras, pinhole, alternative processes, mixed media, and hand drawing. Most recently Mitchell has been specializing in acrylic lifts – this process and some of his work was published in Photographic Possibilities, 3rd edition by Robert Hirsch and Alternative Photographic Processes: Crafting Handmade Images by Brady Wilks.  Learn more about Blue Mitchell's work through his website.

Call for Entries 

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). "Now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!" So wrote Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), mathematician, author and photographer. This exhibition is dedicated to the spirit of Alice, who found an alternative reality in the fiction of Wonderland. For the exhibition "Curiouser and Curiouser: Photographic Dreams and Fictions," we sought photographs that transcend the factual to suggest moments that are ethereal, magical, and wonder-filled.

We are pleased to welcome back photographer, editor and curator Blue Mitchell as the juror for this exhibition. Blue chose 40 photographs for display at PhotoPlace Gallery from October 8th through November 1st. He also selected 35 additional photographs for the gallery's Online Annex. All selected work will be included in a full-color exhibition catalog available for purchase. To help artists defray costs, PhotoPlace Gallery offers to mat and frame work selected for exhibition free of charge, providing artists print their images to our pre-cut mat and frame sizes.