Interview with June Feature Artists Alessandra Suuberg and Chris Deschenes
This month, we are thrilled to have photographers Alessandra Suuberg and Chris Deschenes as our Feature Artists at 4 Market Street!
While stylistically rather different, each artists’ work compliments each other in regards to sense of place and form. In two interviews with us, Alessandra and Chris talk technique, intention, and their experience prepping to showcase work.
Reviewing your work, Alessandra, you have a wonderful eye for form. What prompted you to create these striking images of flowers, and in particular, your Petals series?
Alessandra: Flowers are a naturally beautiful subject, and it is always a fun challenge to try to find the right angles and lighting to capture their beauty on camera. They are also a relatively ubiquitous subject, so there are plenty of opportunities to practice photographing them. The Petals series began with a walk in a park in Charleston, South Carolina, when some flowering trees unexpectedly caught my eye. I saved three images from the set I took of those flowers' petals and have gradually added to the series since then.
In your travels, is there a favorite place that you've been? And, when photographing a place, what do you find is most important or interesting to capture?
Alessandra: For a long time, travel for me was always about working or studying, so my favorite destination ended up being the first where I took a real, deliberate vacation: Furnas, in the Azores, in Portugal. Furnas is known for its hot springs, and it is also a beautiful place to walk for hours through nature and gardens and practice taking pictures.
Alternatively, in terms of the U.S. road trip destinations, I lived in New Orleans for three years and love to go back to visit. New Orleans is full of art, music, and delicious food, so it has a way of drawing people back for repeat visits.
In terms of what I find to be most important or interesting to capture at any given destination, I like to be surprised! It is possible to arrive in a place with certain expectations of what one will see and be pleasantly caught off guard.
How did you learn about The Collaborative and what have you learned in the process of preparing for your opening?
Alessandra: I live nearby and frequently pass The Collaborative on walks for coffee or frozen lemonade. You have an eye-catching gallery! I am actually a relatively new artist, so there has been a lot to learn about the logistics of preparing for a feature show, and generally what to expect. Thankfully you have a great team that has made the process go smoothly. Thanks again for this opportunity.
From the information you provided to us in your bio, you have an interesting background, Chris! Has acting and/or your experience with meteorology shaped your work? If so, in what ways?
Chris: I definitely try to experience as much as possible and pick up things wherever I can. With acting, I've been fortunate and have had opportunities to work with some brilliant creatives and pick their brains on how they approach their art. I think specifically with cinematographers and set photographers, that I’ve gained a better sense of composition and lighting, and I find myself referencing these skills when trying to put an image together.
I absolutely love weather and love talking about it (not just as a conversation filler), so I sort of joke that I'm an amateur meteorologist. But, I'm more drawn to outdoor/landscape photography than any other subject and a huge component of that is the weather, so I'm constantly analyzing forecasts before I go out to shoot. Cloud cover, sun/moon angles, all these fun things that are like a puzzle and when the image actually works out as you think, it's super neat.
You have some fantastic long-exposure images. What draws you to this technique?
Chris: Thank you! For me, I really love the ambiguity that the technique brings and it's fun to make things a bit more interpretive. Double-exposures as well. Cameras do some really awesome things that our eyes can't. I really love that you can take something broad but full of infinite details, like a landscape, and incorporate some element of the granular to bring it front and center of an image.
How did you learn about The Collaborative and what have you learned in the process of preparing for your opening?
Chris: My friend Matt (DeLeo) creates such beautiful work and has been a Featured Artist with The Collaborative. I went in once to take a look at his display and was just really impressed by the space, the organization and all of the artists on exhibit. I grew up nearby (Swansea) and think it's incredible that The Collaborative is able to build out so many programs in Warren to help foster the arts scene. It's amazing.
The biggest learning experience was deciding what to print and frame, as well as the layout of my show. (Also that I desperately need to improve my own cataloging process but that's tomorrow's problem). I definitely wanted to have some cohesive thread between all the photos and it was a fun exercise to go through everything I've ever taken, narrow down the images, and ultimately make some mock-ups before pressing 'Print'. It's been incredibly rewarding and I'm really grateful to The Collaborative for giving me a chance to put some photos up on a really big wall in an awesome space.
