Esther Babb | Beauty in Simplicity, 2019
BIO
As an artist and photographer, Esther Babb believes the delicate balancing act lies in creating something that respects and honors the subject and the viewers’ beliefs while staying true to her own vision and narrative. Her themes play upon and honor past/present, shadow/light, material/immaterial — often using a slow shutter speed to capture the disintegration of time, place and memory to create a dreamy, melancholy look and feeling.
Esther’s work is held in numerous public and private collections worldwide, and has been exhibited in both the United States and Europe. Her formal education in photography began at the University of Chicago where she studied under Laura Letinsky.
Since then, she has been a teaching assistant and taken courses at the International Center of Photography, Magnum Photography and Maine Photographic Workshops, studying under Bill Armstrong, Todd Hido, Susan Kleckner, Andre Lambertson, Andrea Modica, Jonathan Torgovnik, Brian Young and Alex Webb.
Esther is currently the Director of Corporate Development at Gemini where she works with blockchain technology and crypto currency as well as having studied machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Additionally, she has worked philanthropically, raising funds for human-interest causes and preservation.
Esther currently resides in New York City.
ABOUT
The piece I selected for the first Contemporary and Digital Art Fair in New York is called Beauty in Simplicity. Shot with a D2X Nikon digital camera/35mm frame, I made a simple manipulation to a photographic image taken at the New York Botanical Garden. Framed and presented on a 30-second timed loop, this project allows me to expose and express the concept of senescence, which is the process of maturation and transition. In nature and in life, a quick becoming is a quick fading away. The season of rebirth signals us to recognize this change as we transition from winter to spring, and the cycle of nature allows us to gather our energy, as we do data. My decision to animate an image of flowers in full bloom demonstrates that there is neither beginning nor end, only an unfolding awareness of the transitions that sustain our evolution.
Digital Edition of 300 (uniquely yours and recorded on blockchain)