Highly Original Visual Explorations with Elizabeth Bick

By: Claudie Benjamin, Guest Writer

Photographer Elizabeth Bick, Asst. Prof. of Photography at College of Charleston’s Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, has devoted the past decade to creating a body of work that describes the movements of people in public spaces. The photographs made in New York City chronicling street activity are executed in a way that emphasizes passage of time and changes of light rather than depicting identifiable locations. The large body of work Bick photographed in Rome, is less abstract and more focused on emotion exhibited in the context of an unusual, even spiritual site.

So, how is it to be a recent transplant to Charleston? Is the dramatic change of home base having an impact on her work? The recent move to Charleston is linked to her taking the job at the College of Charleston (CofC) Haley Institute of Contemporary Art. Bick says her new direction coincided with the Covid period which for her, as for many others, was a pivotal moment, an occasion for self- assessment and change.

Current evolving project on people and interiors

However, Bick emphatically explains that it’s a mistake to think about photography, even street photography as defined by location. As an artist, mentor and professor, all part of her role at CofC, she says “people are so tied to an analysis of location, it’s really about the photographer’s exploration of how people are in the world.”

It’s very exciting to learn that now in Charleston, in conjunction with teaching, Bick is also embarking on a new photographic project, one less addressing urban public spaces and far more on people in interior spaces.  Trained as a dancer, Bick perceives choreographic drama in the movements of the pedestrians she chronicles.The concept is unconventional and executed over time in Stockholm and in Fårö, a sparsely inhabited island off the Swedish Coast. The organizing theme is linked to the famous Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman who explored the human condition in terms of love, sex, isolation and ennui.  He died in 2007 and is buried on the island. Bick has been researching and will continue to research and make a complex series of photographs related to Bergman including people who worked with him and photos shot on set during film making.

Current show at CofC Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art

Bick finds she is very fortunate to have found an academic position that allows her the time to develop as an artist. Also, she says, the college has provided her with a wonderful studio and is very supportive of her work.

In fact, Contrapposto, the current exhibit was designed by Bick with a former student, is still in view until February 25. Unusual, complicated and very interesting. The exhibit encourages the viewer to move through and among the works, rather than passively observing them, highlights Bick’s work relating to public spaces. Hopefully, Sometime in the months ahead, Bick will share her ongoing figurative reflections on domestic spaces and how these environments are inhabited.

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