Photography exhibition features more than 70 photographs

February 6, 2013

Carla Browning

Two Master of Fine Arts photography students, Alice Bailey and Ryota “Kaji” Kajita, are exhibiting professional quality art photographs in the UAF Art Gallery. Over seventy photographs are exhibited, including portraits and landscapes from various locations in Alaska and Japan. The opening reception will take place Friday, Feb. 8, from 5 - 7 p.m. The show runs through Feb. 15 in the Gallery weekdays from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

The exhibition includes images from a portraiture project of contemporary Alaskans that Alice Bailey has been working on since 2011. She has collaborated with people in her life to make a photographs that depicts the individual in their environment, whether that be a dog yard, frozen river, restaurant, or at home. Alice is also exhibiting a body of work using the Copperplate Photogravure process, a nineteenth century method of etching a negative onto copper then printing it using a press. She learned the process from Lothar Osterburg, one of the foremost photogravure artists in New York.

The exhibition also includes Kaji’s “Ice Formations in Alaska” which were featured in “Photo Technique” magazine, selected for Alaska’s Rarefied Light 2012 juried exhibition, included in the Blue Sky's Pacific Northwest Photography Viewing Drawers 2013 (Portland, OR). Two images from the “Gateway” series will be published in “Aesthetica, the Art and Culture" (February/March 2013) in the United Kingdom. Kaji’s “Selfportrait in Alaska Apartment” was exhibited in the 27th annual No Big Heads national juried portrait exhibition. Three images from the series Reflection were selected for the nationwide juried exhibition, Japan Professional Photographers Society Exhibition 2011.

Alice Bailey Bio:
Alice Bailey received a BA in Studio Art at the University of Virginia in 2004, and completed the Fifth Year Aunspaugh Fellowship at UVA in 2005. Alice has lived in Alaska for eight years, originally moving here to be a river guide in the Brooks Range. She currently spends winter in Fairbanks and the summer months working as the Assistant Coordinator for the Kuskokwim River Salmon Management Working Group in Bethel, Alaska.

Ryota Kajita Bio:
Ryota “Kaji” Kajita was born in Mizunami, Japan. His photographs have been exhibited in numerous statewide and national juried shows and publications. His video documentary “Losing Ground” about Shishmaref Island’s in Alaska, achieved Cinema Committee Choice Award in Fairbanks Film Festival (2007), and was broadcast on the Alaska One television (2012). Kaji loves traveling, backpacking and crosscountry skiing with a medium format film camera and always responds to the beauty of nature. He has traveled to more than 50 remote Alaska villages by a two seat, light aircraft and snowmobile for scientific research.