Suns from Flickr
installation view from
the Gallery of Modern Art
Brisbane, Australia
Suns from Flickr
installation view from
the NY PhotoFest08
Suns Detail
Penelope Umbrico Mixed Media

Suns from Flickr

This is a project I started when I found 541,795 pictures of sunsets searching the word “sunset” on the Flickr site. I took just the suns from these pictures and made snapshot prints of them. I find it particularly absurd that the sun, the quintessential life giver, constant in our lives, symbol of enlightenment, spirituality, eternity, all things unreachable and ephemeral, omnipotent provider of optimism and vitamin D… and so ubiquitously photographed, is subsumed to the internet, the most virtual of spaces equally infinite but within a closed electrical circuit. Looking into this cool electronic space one finds a virtual window into the natural world.

Education
School of Visual Arts, New York, M.F.A., 1989
Ontario College of Art, AOCA, Toronto, Ontario, 1980

Selected Solo Exhibitions
Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA, May, 2007
P/M Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, November, 2005
Bernard Toale Gallery, Boston, MA, 2004
Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY, 2002
Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY, 1998
Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Montgomery, AL 1997
Julie Saul Gallery, New York, 1995
Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY,1993
International Center of Photography, New York, NY, 1992

Selected Group Exhibitions
The Ubiquitous Image, curator Lesley Martin, New York Photography Festival, May 2008
Cambridge Gallery - Riverside, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, July 2008
The Photographic Resource Center “Ad / Agency”, Boston, MA, November, 2007
Gallery of Modern Art, “The Leisure Class”, Brisbane, Australia, 2008
The Drake, “Looking The Other Way”, curator Mia Nielsen, Toronto, Ontario Canada, May 2007
McDonough Museum of Art, The End(s) of Photography:Modeling the Photographic, curator Saul Ostrow, March 2007
Selected Awards and Grants
Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s Fellowship Grant, 2008
Harvestworks, Scholar Residency, 2008
NY Foundation of the Arts, Fellowship Grant, 2002
NY Foundation of the Arts, Catalog Project Grant, 2000
Paula Rhoades Memorial Scholarship, 1989

Selected Public and Private Collections
International Center of Photography, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Rhizome Art Base
Tampa Museum of Art, Florida