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ABOUT ME

 

As a mature artist, I don't have a traditional fine arts resume. While still attending Cooper Union, I became a successful NYC restaurateur, owned fishing boats and a small farm, and traveled the world. At the age of 40, I returned to my initial passion of fine arts. The art career I pursued has taken many forms, from intimate and timely award-winning documentaries to Virtual Reality and projection mapping. Yet, always at the core has been my embrace of that magical space where tech and art come together in the pursuit of new forms of storytelling.

 

In the 1990's, I adopted the exciting new prosumer camera format to capture deeply intimate post-verité video diaries during the AIDS pandemic. My first documentary, Sandra's Web: a Mother's Diary, premiered on HBO and received a major review in the New York Times. Followed by The Andre Show which was broadcast on PBS and featured at international festivals and galleries. In 1999 I was awarded a Masters in Journalism from the Kiplinger Fellowship at Ohio State University. I used traditional broadcast quality gear but shattered the investigative stories I was telling into a multi-subjective approach breaking documentary norms. This allowed me to capture the birth of Antifa and, as importantly, the young people openly embracing the violence of the extreme right. Invisible Revolution screened at the Sundance Film Festival and Museum of Modern Art, among many other international venues and received major press. 71 West Broadway: Ground Zero, NY begins in front of my home 2 blocks north of the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11 shortly after I stood on the street watching the first plane disappear into the tower. Screenings include the 2002 Library of Congress 9/11 Commemoration, Walker Art Museum, The Warhol Museum, The Kitchen among others and broadcast on the Sundance Channel and PBS. From 2008 to 2020, I was an Associate Professor at Montclair State University where I helped develop the School of Communication & Media and specialized in teaching Documentary and Transmedia. Throughout that time my work continued to evolve along with the technology. WhatKilledKevin, (an interactive web documentary) builds on my earlier use of multi-subjectivity and garnered major press including the Washington Post, Psychology Today and Huffington Post. In 2014, I received a Joint Proclamation from the NJ State Senate and Assembly and City of Newark for educational conferences developed by the National Workplace Bullying Coalition (NWBC) while I was founding President. The creation of NWBC was a direct result of my work on WhatKilledKevin.com  In 2015, the passing of my 102-year­-old Mom prompted me to look at my family history. This opened a new form of storytelling and became the core and structure for Memory Rooms, a Virtual Reality documentary which premiered at the FIVAC experimental video festival in Camaguey, Cuba. Not far from where my Swedish father was born.

 

Just prior to the Pandemic, my husband and I moved to the vital and supportive artist community in Hudson, NY. A few years later, I began using the work of two contemporary painters to bring the narratives held within their art into new immersive formats. Shaky's Meadow incorporates Mount Tremper artist David Pollack's birdhouse sculptures, drawings, and watercolors in site specific video projection mapping installations - most recently at the Lockwood Gallery in upstate NY in 2022. Reviewed by Jen Dragon, D’ART International, May 2022. I also re-envisioned a series of paintings and drawings by my husband, painter Farrell Brickhouse, entitled Russell's Yard as a Virtual Reality experience. This lets users drift through Brickhouse's memories as they explore the magical and playful stories he and his childhood friends created in response to the world around them while growing up in the Atomic Age. Exhibited at LABspace in Hillsdale, NY July 2022 Upstate Art Weekend Group Show.  This was followed by a Solo Show at Time Space Limited (TSL) in Hudson, NY in 2024 featuring my 30ft x 40ft site-specific video installation, Self-Storage. Reviewed by Sandra Moore, Art Spiel.

 

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