By Bernheim
For most people, the beginning of a new year feels like the perfect opportunity for a fresh start. For former Artist in Residence Eileen Neff, this translated to the unveiling of a new website and a chance for us all to see the complete photographic series created while in residence at Bernheim in 2016!
Eileen Neff is an artist, writer and educator who uses the landscape as a primary source of inspiration in the photographic constructions she creates. Her work is rooted in literature and painting studies, with a creative process that includes a layered return to her raw photographic images, often originating in the landscape, but altered at a later time in the studio.
Neff’s preparation prior to the start of her residency was to research Bernheim’s history and development of the land over time. Her interest focused on the difference between the cultivated landscape of the arboretum and the natural areas of the forest. Much of the work created while in residence was a response to her physical experience in the two landscapes and is documented in a series entitled ‘Domesticated and Wild’.
Click here to see the Domesticated and Wild series in its entirety. The completed suite of works visually demonstrates how the Artist in Residence program connects people with Bernheim’s natural beauty through the lens of the artist.
Next time you visit, make sure to stop in the Education Center where you can see Night Light, the beautiful image Neff created as part of her residency that is now in Bernheim’s collection.
See more of Eileen Neff’s work on her website at eileenneff.com.
Over the past 35 years Eileen Neff has exhibited her work extensively and is the recipient of numerous awards including residencies at the MacDowell Art Colony, the Château de La Napoule, France, and the Monte Azul Center for the Arts, Costa Rica; as well as fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, the National Endowment for the Arts, and most recently from the Guggenheim Foundation. Her work has also been collected by museums and institutions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Hood Museum, The Fabric Workshop and Museum and the Pew Charitable Trusts.
