40 light-sensitive paper airplanes exposed to the sky over a period of ten hours at a WWII anti-aircraft lookout post. Tennessee Cove, CA, 2010 by Klea McKenna

We're pleased to announce that Lesley A. Martin, HHS! panelist and publisher of Aperture's books program, has selected Klea McKenna to receive the 3rd Hey, Hot Shot! Curator's Choice Award. In addition to being featured in today's newsletter and right here on the blog, Klea will receive a selection of seven incredible books published by Aperture. A huge thanks to Lesley for judging this round of Curator's Choice, and congratulations to both Klea for her outstanding entry as well as all the other contenders—your entries keep on raising the bar!

Tod Lippy, HHS! Panelist and Editor-in-Chief of Esopus magazine, will be our 4th Guest Curator. Tod will be reviewing all entries submitted before Thursday, July 29th, and the entrant he picks will receive a LIFETIME subscription to Esopus magazine, so submit your best work today!

Of Klea's work, Lesley writes:

Klea McKenna describes her series Slow Burn as "an ongoing series of experiments" in which each image reveals or teaches her something that leads her to the next. This approach—photography as a heuristic process, in which the "eureka" moment of one image pushes us forward toward new discoveries with every step—is ideally the foundation of any artistic practice to some degree or another. It can be a risky, but it can also be incredibly rewarding, for both the viewer and the artist. McKeeena's unique prints are made with homemade cameras or without any recording device at all (paper airplanes made out of photographic materials!). The work has its points of intersection with other artists, including Walead Beshty and Miroslav Tichy, while also seeming to represent a personal means of grappling with the inherent capacities of photographic materials and processes. The resulting work has a certain amount of rawness and tension to it—a quality much appreciated by this particular juror.

In reviewing the artists who have submitted and making this selection, I'm keenly reminded of how savvy the photo community has become as a whole—how much well-executed, carefully constructed, good work there is out there. What I find myself looking for, then, is the work that stands apart for its willingness to try to push a little bit against the expectations of "good." Not work that is different for the sake of difference, but work that takes risks; that reveals deeply held beliefs and interests in how a photograph works—or doesn't.

Detail of 40 Paper Airplanes..., 2010 by Klea McKenna

Untitled (East River) from the series Slow Burn, 2009 by Klea McKenna

Untitled (Lagunitas Creek), from the series Slow Burn, 2010 by Klea McKenna

Untitled (Interstate 5), from the series Slow Burn, 2009 by Klea McKenna

Klea's Artist Statement:

My relationship to the natural landscape lies somewhere between adoration and suspicion. This ambivalence has fueled each of my recent projects. I am interested in human perceptions of and representations of nature, and photography's ability to both confirm and disarm those perceptions. Slow Burn is an ongoing series of experiments. With each one, I learn something new which leads me to the next experiment. As we rush ahead to embrace new digital technologies we are leaving the imaging potential of traditional light sensitive materials relatively untapped. Confined, as they have largely been, to representational reproduction. With this is mind I push these materials to record perceptual experience rather than accurate image. Using analogue photographic methods and crude, handmade cameras, I explore the materiality of the photographic medium and it's capacity to interact with and represent place and landscape in new ways. Recent experiments have included filling the camera with live insect and plant specimens while photographing as well as folding the film up so that it reacts to light as a 3-dimensional object. I attempt to rupture our perception by making the flawed material of the film itself as visible as the image it has captured. There is also a sense of gradual loss in this work, the loss of natural places, of time and of the analogue photographic materials that make these experiments possible. My methodology is informed by the strategies of field biology, Victorian naturalism, and homespun science; practices that employ intense and prolonged observation of natural phenomena.