Photography
Alternate Process Photography
photograph title: Twisted
I started making cyanotypes after seeing the exhibiton: Blue Prints: The Pioneering Photographs of Anna Atkins and the companion exhibition Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works at the NY Public Library in 2019. “Anna Atkins is an exception during the 19th century. She’s a female photographer, and one who’s working shortly after the medium had been invented. Because she is a pioneering woman, she is a model for many contemporary female artists. Atkins is also influential to contemporary eyes because her imagery is simple and beautiful.” Elizabeth Cronin, Assistant Curator of Photography, NYPL.
Photographs © Phyllis Odessey
2019 Cerdeira – Home for Creativity
photograph title: The View from Two Chairs
2019 Cerdeira: Home for Creativity
Artist in Residence
Lousa, Portugal
”I think it makes a huge difference, when you wake in the morning and come out of your house, whether you believe you are walking into dead geographical location, which is used to get to a destination, or whether you are emerging out into a landscape that is just as much, if not more, alive as you, but in a totally different form, and if you go towards it with an open heart and a real, watchful reverence, that you will be absolutely amazed at what it will reveal to you.” John O’Donnohue
Photographs © Phyllis Odessey
2018 Puglia
photograph title: Blue Skies
Rebecca Solnit: “…The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking. This creates an odd consonance between internal and external passage, one that suggests that the mind is also a landscape of sorts and that walking is one way to traverse it.”
Photographs © Phyllis Odessey
2017 American Academy in Rome
Visiting Artist
2017 American Academy in Rome
Rome, Italy
photograph title: Roman Spirals
My baseball cap says “Home from Rome.” The working title of this project was “Rome to Home.” I collaged images together resulting in what Jean-Jacques Rousseau called “alert reverie.”
Photographs © Phyllis Odessey
2017 Guillkistan, Iceland
Artist-in-Residence
2017 Guillkistan
Laugarvatn Lake, Iceland
photograph title: Stairway to Heaven
This work is a journey for the imagination. Some photographs are single landscapes. Some photographs are collaged together. After I have the collage process, I pass the photographs on to my sister, Sheila Odessey. She adds another layer to the photographs by sewing on top of them.
Photographs © Phyllis Odessey
2016 France
Project Title: Field Notes
Photograph: Labrugiere
The evolution of the Field Notes project finds its genesis in the Italian passaggiaata or the French flaneur. This project uses the act of walking to activate thought and emotion.
Photographs © Phyllis Odessey
2015 Obras Foundation, Netherlands
Artist-in-Residence
2015 Obras Foundation
Renkum, Netherlands
Photograph title: Verticality
For this project, I created a series of photographs, which when combined resulted in a kind of psychogeography. Psychogeography is an investigation of the nearby landscape, which maps the effects of the environment on the individual.
Photographs © Phyllis Odessey
2014 Studio Ginestrelle
Artist-in-Residence
2014 Studio Ginestrelle
Regional Park of Mt. Subasio
Walk to the Water was an immersive walk in a rural landscape. The objective of the project was to interfere with the landscape. To place/create objects in the landscape that would focus the walker’s attention creating a kind of “hyper-awareness of the walker’s surroundings.
Photographs © Phyllis Odessey
2013 American Academy in Rome
Visiting Artist
2013 American Academy in Rome
Rome, Italy
photograph title: To Be As Still As A Needle
Most travelers hurry too much…the great thing is to try and travel with the eyes of the spirit wide open, and not to much factual information. To tune in, without reverence, idly — but with real inward attention. It is to be had for the feeling…you can extract the essence of a place once you know how. If you just get as still as a needle, you’ll be there.” – Lawrence Durrell
Photographs © Phyllis Odessey