Amie Potsic, Bathing in the Ganges (Varanasi/Benares, India), Chromogenic Print, 19 x 19 inches, 1996 © Amie Potsic, 2024
January 24, 2024
Amie Potsic is interviewed about her new monograph and solo exhibition: Seeker: An Extraordinary Photographic Odyssey in the Holy Lands. The artist discusses her original photographs as well as mixed media works, memoir, and a monograph created through decades of reflection upon female empowerment, gender politics, and religious patriarchy.
Seeker: An Extraordinary Photographic Odyssey in the Holy Lands is a new monograph by Amie Potsic featuring photographs of stunning visual delight created on the artist's year-long solo photographic odyssey in India and Israel at the age of 23 in 1995. Defying the stereotype of the heroic male photographer, Potsic traversed the Negev Desert and scaled the Himalayas with her Hasselblad camera and over 100 rolls of film. Through a female gaze, she documented visual splendor, human dignity, and the role of women in their communities. Her lens revealed a multifaceted experience of the depth of ritual and resilience of tradition in the eastern and western Holylands. "Finding myself alone in India with just a backpack, my Hasselblad camera, and 100+ rolls of film, I was terrified yet certain. This was no accident. Despite my well-intended plans, the universe had something bigger and better in mind, " explains Potsic.
Amie Potsic is a photographer and installation artist whose work addresses cultural, personal, and natural phenomena through the lens of social responsibility and climate change. Potsic has exhibited her work internationally at the Art Park in Rhodes, Greece; Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Colombia; Medfoundart di Cagliari, Italy; the Royal College of London; the Museum of New Art in Detroit; The Woodmere Art Museum, The National Constitution Center Museum, The Painted Bride, and James Oliver Gallery in Philadelphia; The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington, DE; Mission 17 in San Francisco; and 626 Gallery in Los Angeles. She won Best in Show for her work in Experimental Photography Today at The Delaware Contemporary in 2015 and was featured in Keystone 1, the inaugural Pennsylvania Photography Biennial, at Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh the same year. Potsic received her MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and BA’s in Photojournalism and English Literature from Indiana University, graduating with Distinguished Honors and a member of Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. She has held faculty appointments at the University of California at Berkeley, Ohlone College, and the San Francisco Art Institute and published her work in The San Francisco Chronicle and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Potsic has been a guest lecturer at The International Center of Photography and is the Host of Art Watch Radio and Podcast on WCHE 1520 & 95.3 in Greater Philadelphia.
Book Cover Image, Seeker by Amier Potsic, © Amie Potsic 2024
AMIE POTSIC
SEEKER
On view from January 27 - March 31, 2024 at The SPACE Art Gallery
Amie Potsic, Temple Light (Jaisalmer, India), Chromogenic Print, 19 x 19 inches, 1996 © Amie Potsic, 2024
Amie Potsic, Fire (Calcutta, India), Chromogenic Print, 19 x 19 inches, 1996 © Amie Potsic, 2024
Amie Potsic, Sadhu (Varanasi/Benares, India), Chromogenic Print, 19 x 19 inches, 1996 © Amie Potsic, 2024
Amie Potsic, Minyan (Jerusalem, Israel), Chromogenic Print, 19 x 19 inches, 1996 © Amie Potsic, 2024
Amie Potsic, Sukkot Celebration (Tzfat, Israel), Chromogenic Print, 19 x 19 inches, 1996 © Amie Potsic, 2024
Amie Potsic, Makhtesh Ramon Crater, The Negev Desert (Mitzpe Ramon, Israel), Chromogenic Print, 19 x 19 inches, 1996 © Amie Potsic, 2024
Amie Potsic, Nun on the Mount of Olives (Jerusalem, Israel), Chromogenic Print, 19 x 19 inches, 1996 © Amie Potsic, 2024
Click here to visit Amie Potsic’s website.
Banner Image: Amie Potsic, Fire (Calcutta, India), Chromogenic Print, 19 x 19 inches, 1996 © Amie Potsic, 2024