About Ginevra
Baltimore City - Station North A&E District
Ginevra Shay is an artist and curator living and working in Baltimore, Maryland.
Ginevra was the 2019 Mollie Ruprecht Visiting Artist at the University of Vermont and a 2018 Maryland Individual Artist Award
Recipient for Photography. Their work has been featured and reviewed online in Artforum and Artnews and in print in Washington Post, GUP Magazine, DeStandaard Belgium, Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Paper, Baltimore Magazine, and BmoreArt Magazine.
Ginevra exhibits… more
Ginevra exhibits… more
Jump to a project:
Raum Bilder
Raum Bilder explores how societies utilizes the proliferation of images in print and media as a means of distraction within a dystopian late-capitalist landscape. I’m interested in the ways re-appropriated images can be used to construct a new visual landscape, one that can critique and challenge the need for distraction through narrative spectacle — though, my dioramas were initially conceived as a means to dissolve the prescribed meaning or use of the photographic image. I’ve been pulling source imagery from advertisements and articles within mass produced publications. Through the dioramas I’ve been able to strip these images of their initial content and focus on their tonal quality, form, and texture — the photograph becoming a paint stroke, or other mark, to build new meaning and purpose within a reimagined landscape.
-
raumbilder_6.jpg2014 24.5x30.5" Archival Inkjet Print
-
raumbilder_5.jpg2014 24.5x30.5" Archival Inkjet Print
-
raumbilder_4_c.jpg2014 24.5x30.5" Archival Inkjet Print
-
raumbilder_3.jpg2014 24.5x30.5" Archival Inkjet Print
-
raumbilder_1.jpg2014 24.5x30.5" Archival Inkjet Print
-
raumbilder_2.jpg2014 24.5x30.5" Archival Inkjet Print
Brondelidded
Bronzelidded continues my interests in dismantling the photographic medium and the deconstruction of images. Immediately preceding Bronzelidded, I had spent a year making a series titled Lesser Chains, executed in a black and white darkroom without the use of a camera. It was important for me to abandon the camera for a moment and make photographs with the most minimum of means. After exhausting my set parameters for image making, and finishing the series, I decided to start a new body of work where I used bleach to destroy the remaining photographs from Lesser Chains. These manipulated prints became the Bronzelidded series. It was exciting to make photos that were unfixed, imperfect, and ever-changing.
Created for an exhibition at Yale University Art Gallery and now in their collection.
Created for an exhibition at Yale University Art Gallery and now in their collection.
-
bronzelidded006_j_2.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
bronzelidded010_j_web3.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
bronzelidded009_j_web_2.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
bronzelidded008_j_web_2.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
bronzelidded007_j_web_2.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
bronzelidded004_j_2.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
bronzelidded002_j_web_2.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
bronzelidded3_web_2.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
bronzelidded005_j_web_2.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
bronzelidded012_j_web.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
Lesser Chains (pt 1)
Lesser Chains (of Being) stems from my long-standing skepticism regarding photography and its relationship to mass culture. Though I was trained in traditional darkroom methods, and having early on pursued direct, documentary, decisive-moment style image making, I became wary of the ease with which images could be used to manipulate society. I felt a need to rebuild my practice, tossing out anything I deemed inessential. To this end, I temporarily abandoned both the camera and the world external to the darkroom.
Early images from Lesser Chains were as simple and direct of photographic experiences as I could articulate; they are the record of the choreography of my body engaging with the chemistry and space of the darkroom. Slowly, I began to re-incorporate the use of the camera in documenting the world, albeit in a different way. Fragments of architecture began to appear as grounds in some of these prints.
-
stream-dots.jpg2013 11x14" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
untitled-9_ginevrashay_web.jpg2013 11x14" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
smoke_ginevrashay.jpg2013 11x14" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
rip_ginevrashay.jpg2013 11x14" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
lesserchains_ginevrashay_newspots.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
lesserchains_ginevrashay_cello.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
lesserchains_ginevra_shay_geo.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
lesserchains_ginevra_shay_dots.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
bubbles_ginevrashay.jpg2013 11x14" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
driedpaint_ginevrashay_web.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
Lesser Chains (pt 2)
Lesser Chains (of Being) stems from my long-standing skepticism regarding photography and its relationship to mass culture. Though I was trained in traditional darkroom methods, and having early on pursued direct, documentary, decisive-moment style image making, I became wary of the ease with which images could be used to manipulate society. I felt a need to rebuild my practice, tossing out anything I deemed inessential. To this end, I temporarily abandoned both the camera and the world external to the darkroom.
Early images from Lesser Chains were as simple and direct of photographic experiences as I could articulate; they are the record of the choreography of my body engaging with the chemistry and space of the darkroom. Slowly, I began to re-incorporate the use of the camera in documenting the world, albeit in a different way. Fragments of architecture began to appear as grounds in some of these prints.
-
os_ginevrashay.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
wigglels_ginevrashay.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
ss_ginevrashay.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
smilie_ginevrashay.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
newus_ginevrashay.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
spiral_ginevrashay.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
-
balloonanimals_ginevrashay.jpg2014 8x10" Unique Gelatin Silver Print 1/1
Paintings on Found Photographs for Shay/Bouché
Paintings on Found Photographs for a publication created with artist James Bouché. Two separate artists’ books that were conceptualized and printed together by Ginevra Shay and James Bouché. Each book explores non-traditional photographic processes. Ginevra's zine is a series of 16 paintings on found photographs. James' zine is composed of 16 scans of personal objects with talismanic qualities.
Published March 2013
Edition of 100
Two Zines
32 pages total
Risograph Printed
Saddle Stitch Bound
5.5x8"
Available at Printed Matter in NYC
In the following collections:
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Rock Paper Sissors, Oakland, CA
International Center for Photography, New York, NY
Arts & Sciences PROJECTS, New York, NY
Parallel Art Space, in Queens, NY
950 Hart Gallery in Bushwick, NY
Indie Photobook Library, Washington, DC
Houston Center of Photography, Houston, TX
Bethel University Collection of Artist Books & Publications, St. Paul, MN
Little Brown Mushroom Books, St. Paul, MN
Open Space Library, Baltimore, MD
Memorial Library at 17 Cox, Beverly, MA
Salford Zine Library, in Manchester, UK
Work Flow, Brighton, UK
Published March 2013
Edition of 100
Two Zines
32 pages total
Risograph Printed
Saddle Stitch Bound
5.5x8"
Available at Printed Matter in NYC
In the following collections:
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Rock Paper Sissors, Oakland, CA
International Center for Photography, New York, NY
Arts & Sciences PROJECTS, New York, NY
Parallel Art Space, in Queens, NY
950 Hart Gallery in Bushwick, NY
Indie Photobook Library, Washington, DC
Houston Center of Photography, Houston, TX
Bethel University Collection of Artist Books & Publications, St. Paul, MN
Little Brown Mushroom Books, St. Paul, MN
Open Space Library, Baltimore, MD
Memorial Library at 17 Cox, Beverly, MA
Salford Zine Library, in Manchester, UK
Work Flow, Brighton, UK
-
shaybouche2.jpg
-
newpainting15_ginevrashay_resize.jpg
-
newpainting10_ginevrashay_resize.jpg
-
newpainting11_ginevrashay_resize.jpg
-
newpainting3_ginevrashay_resize.jpg
-
newpainting16_ginevrashay_resize.jpg
-
newpainting13_ginevrashay_resize.jpg
-
newpainting_ginevrashay_resize.jpg
-
newpainting6_ginevrashay_resize.jpg