The juror for the 86th Annual Student Art Show was Professor Eli Craven, Assistant Professor, Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana.
Eli Craven joins Purdue as assistant professor of photography and related media in the Patti & Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance.
He holds an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he was a Block Grant Fellow. Prior to joining Purdue he was adjunct faculty at UIUC and a resident artist at the Tarble Arts Center at Eastern Illinois University.
Craven’s research resides in the critical investigation of the image and its relationship to ideologies of sexuality, desire, and death. He works conceptually with photographic images, both found and original, by re-evaluating the physical and psychological potential of the picture through sculptural and digital interventions.
Craven’s work is exhibited nationally and internationally. Most recently at Feinkunst Krüger Gallery in Hamburg, Germany and the Biennial of Contemporary Art Maia in Portugal. His work has also been widely published. Select publications and clients include Philosophie Magazine, The Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Gestalten Publishing Berlin, Penguin Random House Barcelona, and The Paris National Opera.
Below is Professor Craven’s artist statement found online:
“I work conceptually with photographic images, by re-evaluating their physical and psychological potential through sculptural and digital interventions. The works exist somewhere between the image and object, attempting to connect the representation to some form of reality. I am interested in the ubiquitous and mundane imagery of family portraiture, self-help books, and instructional guides, which, upon close inspection, allude to a range of human fears and emotions. The research begins with the acts of looking and collecting, then progresses to a critical investigation of the image and its relationship to ideologies of sexuality, desire, and death.
Discarded images and objects are collected and combined with my own photography, sculpture, and video to develop an accumulated archive of sources. The materials are reconfigured through simple acts of censorship and distortion, potentially provoking the desire to see. The renewed compositions often act like a peephole, which diverts the viewer’s gaze, and focuses attention to otherwise overlooked details. Entire scenes are rendered incomplete without the viewer’s imagination filling the gaps and visualizing what lies beneath the surface of the photograph, or behind the veil.”
Professor Craven’s professional website is available at the following link: https://elicraven.com/Projects