Deanne Sokolin (born, New York City) is a photographic artist whose work explores identity. She earned an MFA in Photography and New Media from the School of Visual Arts and a BA in Art History/BFA in Photography from Tufts University and the Boston Museum School. An early adopter of digital photography, her photographs have been widely exhibited at galleries and museums, including the Aperture Foundation, the International Center of Photography, and the Tate Modern. In 2021, her work was featured in Art in the Plague Year, organized by The California Museum of Photography in Riverside. She has had solo exhibitions at the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA, Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, Alfred University, Alfred, NY, and the Jewish Museum, Philadelphia, PA. Her work is in permanent collections, including the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard.
Sokolin is an ICP Infinity Award nominee, and her photographs have been published by Aperture, ICP, KGP-Monolith, and Overlapse Books, among others. She has participated in artist residencies, including the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada, and the Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. After a robust commercial practice, she returned to artistic practice in 2017 continuing her exploration of identity, ritual and tradition. Sokolin lives with her family in Brooklyn, NY.
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Statement: Investigating identity has been the primary concern in my photographic artwork to date. Projects explore my Jewish cultural heritage and the idea of creating new meaning from old rituals and traditions. The goal is to expand on cultural identity and foster the development of new Jewish culture. My work explores a variety of subjects, including food, commemoration rituals, and superstition. Though subject matter changes from project to project, the theme remains the same.
I work primarily in the studio with a digital camera and draw on a range of influences including Conceptual Art, Surrealism, and Documentary Photography. My core premise about art aligns with a quote by conceptual artist Glenn Ligon, “Making art is about figuring out who we are.” To this end, I would like my work to raise questions such as what place rituals and traditions have in contemporary life, how one retains a sense of identity in the context of assimilation, and ultimately, where does an artist find inspiration.