Art&: Photographers’ Favorites: Exploring the Tsiaras Collection

Séan Alonzo Harris

Séan Alonzo Harris is a professional editorial, commercial and fine art photographer concentrating on narrative and environmental portraiture. Over the past 25 years, Séan’s work is featured in a range of national publications, advertising campaigns, and exhibitions. In these varied contexts, Séan’s work focuses on the human experience and expressions of cultural identity. Séan’s images bear witness to often invisible or overlooked members of our communities, and creates portraits that provide a counter image and narrative of self-worth and personal agency. Harris has received critical acclaim for his fine artwork. Sean’s most recent solo exhibitions include, Light Confirms My Reality at University of Maine, The Space Between at Cove Street Arts in Portland, Maine and I Am Not A Stranger, at the Colby College Museum of Art, supported by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission. Séan serves on several professional boards and advisory committees in Maine including Indigo Arts Alliance, Colby College Museum of Art Board of Governors and Maine Media Workshops and College. Sean was instrumental in creating and shaping Convening: A Critical Dialogue on the History and Future of Media Arts atMaine Media Workshops and College. This virtual symposium brought together leading experts in media arts from across the country to explore themes of representation, image making, identity, and creative practice. The program featured keynote speakers and panel discussions organized by leading practitioners and moderated by Harris. Harris graduated from the Art Institute of Boston and studied photography in Viterbo, Italy and at the Maine Media Workshops and College in Rockport, Maine.

Charles Daniel Dawson

Charles Daniel (“Danny”) Dawson is a photographer, curator, arts administrator, consultant, filmmaker, and scholar based in New York City.  He served as curator of photography, film and video at the Studio Museum in Harlem (NYC), director of special projects at the Caribbean Cultural Center (NYC), and curatorial consultant and director of education at the Museum for African Art (NYC). As a photographer, he has shown his work in more than 30 exhibitions. He also has curated more than 40 exhibitions, including Harlem Heyday: The Photographs of James Van Der Zee and The Sound I Saw: The Jazz Photographs of Roy DeCarava. Dawson has been associated with many prize-winning films, including Head and Heart by James Mannas and Capoeiras of Brazil by Warrington Hudlin. Dawson has given lectures at Columbia University, Princeton University, the University of California-Berkeley, the New School for Social Research, the Federal University of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro-Brazil, among many others. Additionally, he has taught seminars on African Spirituality in the Americas at Columbia University, the University of Iowa, New York University and Yale University.

Lola Flash

Working at the forefront of genderqueer visual politics for more than three decades, photographer Lola Flash’s work challenges stereotypes and gender, sexual, and racial preconceptions. An active member of ACT UP during the time of the AIDS epidemic in New York City, Flash was notably featured in the 1989 “Kissing Doesn’t Kill” poster. Her art and activism are profoundly connected, fueling a life-long commitment to visibility and preserving the legacy of LGBTQIA+ and communities of color worldwide. Flash has work included in important collections such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Brooklyn Museum. She is currently a proud member of the Kamoinge Collective. Flash received her bachelor’s degree from Maryland Institute and her Masters’ from London College of Printing, in the UK. Flash works primarily in portraiture with a 4×5 film camera, engaging those who are often deemed invisible. Flash’s practice is firmly rooted in social justice advocacy around sexual, racial, and cultural difference.

Elizabeth Greenberg

Elizabeth Greenberg is an artist and educator living on the coast of Maine.  She is an explorer of places and memories of that which has never been seen. As a teenager she fell in love with the medium of photography, and it has since been the language she uses to share her daydreams and visions of imaginary places. Elizabeth’s passion for photography has also been her guide for living a life and career immersed in a daily conversation about looking at and making pictures.

She studied photography at Rhode Island School of Design and thereafter began what would become a long-term relationship with the Maine Media Workshops + College (formerly Maine Photographic Workshops.) After working with photographer Arnold Newman for many years and running her own commercial photography business in NYC she changed paths to pursue her own art practice and share her passion for the medium of photography through education.  She received her MFA in Visual Arts from Vermont College. Elizabeth’s work has been exhibited across the country and she has curated numerous exhibitions. Currently, Elizabeth is the Arnold and Augusta Newman Provost at Maine Media Workshops + College and administers the Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture to honor her mentor’s legacy. Elizabeth teaches workshops in Maine and Hawaii and is a member of the faculty in both the certificate and MFA programs at the college.

The Art& series brings together visiting artists, scholars, museum staff, and community experts for conversations about exhibitions, collections, and projects at the Colby College Museum of Art and its Lunder Institute for American Art. A mix of in-person, virtual, and hybrid programs, this series is designed for those interested in learning more about art and engaging with the key issues of our times.