Penelope Umbrico
(United States + Ontario, Canada)

Penelope Umbrico’s work is a reinterpretation of vernacular photography that she has found on the Web or in printed catalogues. In her series Sunset Portraits from 12,193,606 Flickr Sunsets on 4/25/13 (2013) and TVs From Craigslist (2009–12), she suggests that these anonymous images, one set depicting people standing in front of sunsets, the other made for selling televisions, have meanings different from those intended by the photographer or the original publisher of the image. They have a life beyond their original use.
Born in 1957 in Philadelphia, Penelope Umbrico grew up in Toronto. She lives and works in New York, where she received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts. Her works have featured in solo and group exhibitions at the FotoMuseum in Antwerp (2012), the Photographers’ Gallery in London (2012), the Aperture Foundation Photography Gallery in New York (2009, 2012), Les Rencontres d’Arles (2011), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2009), and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York (2009),among others. She has received numerous grants and fellowships, including the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in 2012, the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant in 2011, the New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in 2010, the Anonymous Was A Woman grant in 2009, and the Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s Fellowship Grant in 2008.
DARLING FOUNDRY
745 Ottawa Street | 438.878.0344
Sept. 6 – Oct. 5, 2013 | Wednesday to Sunday 12 pm to 7 pm
Opening Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013 at 6 pm (meet the artist)