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, the California Museum of Photography and the Tate Modern. 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 the permanent collections of the ICP and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, among others.
Sokolin is an ICP Infinity Award nominee, and her photographs have been published by Aperture, ICP, KGP-Monolith, and most recently, Overlapse Editions. She has participated in artist residencies, including the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta, Canada, and the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico. Sokolin has also been a Lecturer in Photography at Princeton University, School of Visual Arts and Marlboro College. After a robust commercial practice, she returned to artistic practice in 2017 continuing her exploration of identity, ritual and tradition. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, NY.
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Statement: Investigating identity has been the primary concern of my photographic artwork to date. Projects explore my Jewish cultural heritage and the idea of creating new meaning from old rituals and traditions. Though the subject matter changes from project to project, the theme remains the same. The central goal is to expand identity to cultivate connection and foster the development of new Jewish culture.
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 extent, I would like my work to raise questions such as, what place do rituals and traditions have in contemporary life, how does one retain a sense of identity in the context of assimilation and ultimately, where does an artist find inspiration?