Thinking Big: Photographs by Gideon Barnett and Erik Schubert

The ETSU Slocumb Galleries is pleased to present Thinking Big, two solo photography shows by Gideon Barnett and Erik Schubert from June 2 to June 27, 2008 with a reception on Monday, June 23 from 4 to 6 p.m.. The galleries are located in Ball Hall on East Tennessee State University's main campus.

Gideon Barnett, a Tennessee native currently pursuing his MFA at University of California at Riverside, is displaying work from his Pile series. Barnett is inspired by the western frontier photographs taken by Carleton Watkins and William Henry Jackson taken in the late 19th century. He searches contemporary landscapes for scenes that are as magnificent as the work by these photographers he admires to document the sculptural by-products of the anonymous industrial artists of our time.

Erik Schubert, currently living in Boston Massachusetts, is interested in how our business-centered society shapes our visual world. His body of work, How to Win Friends and Influence People, takes its title from the classic book by Dale Carnegie, which was a resource in his childhood home's reading collection. Inspired by this father, who is a business man, the images are taken both on location, such as business expos, and in the studio with still lifes of business ephemera.

Barnett, who has a BFA from Columbia College in Chicago, recently had work on display at the New York Photo Festival in the exhibition curated by Tim Barber. He will also be showing at the Riverside Art Museum in California and at the Quinzaine Photographique Nantaise photography festival in the West of France this year. Schubert, who recently completely his MFA at Mass Art, currently has work on display at the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University in a show curated by Leslie Martin, the publisher at the Aperture Foundation.

Thinking Big was curated by Tammy Mercure, a current MFA candidate in photography at ETSU. The public is invited to experience Thinking Big at the Slocumb Galleries from June 2 to June 27 and meet the artists during the reception Monday June 23, from 4 to 6 pm. Gallery hours are from 8 am to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, with extended hours during the reception. Please contact the Slocumb Galleries at 423-439-4291 or contrera@etsu.edu or Tammy Mercure at 312-316-7797 or tammymercure@gmail.com for more information.