"Mel," a photograph by Erika McClintock
ABINGDON, VA – William King Museum: Center for Art and Cultural Heritage welcomes new studio artist Erika McClintock, who is working on two ongoing series of photographs.
• The first is a series of environmental portraits titled Family Portraits. The first photographs in this series were simple and stark. All of the people captured in the original series were either immediate family members or close friends. But over the years, the series has expanded to include a wide variety of individuals and families that she has met and have become more of a meditation on the concept of family and how familial relationships are formed.
* The second series focuses on McClintock's exploration of her new home – specifically East Tennessee, and in much broader terms, the South in general. Born, raised and educated in the Midwest and having spent the previous 7 years in Pittsburgh, PA, McClintock's understanding of the South was informed primarily through literature, photography and media. Since moving to East Tennessee, she has been photographing the landscape and people she has found here. She uses a variety of cameras to capture these images - ranging from a digital point-and-shoot pocket camera to a 30 year old medium format camera. She has even been experimenting with a plastic camera to capture images in a variety of locations such as rural Tennessee, Asheville, N.C., Abingdon, Va., and Southern Louisiana (in the days leading up to Mardi Gras). She looks forward to building on these works in the coming months.
McClintock received her first undergraduate degree in Media Studies with an emphasis in Photography from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1997. She received her second BA in Media Communications from the University of Pittsburgh in 2010. Her work was most recently included in the exhibition "Soaring: Nine Women" at the Tipton Gallery in downtown Johnson City, TN in June 2011.
Examples of some of these works can be seen in McClintock's studio space on the first floor of William King Museum and online at WilliamKingMuseum.org. You can also view examples of her work at www.erikamcclintock.tumblr.com.
