Bellamy Printz

Bellamy Printz is curator at the Cleveland Clinic, and co-founder of the Zygote Press.

My work explores issues of memory, time, and incident. The sentient experience of a moment and the physical reminder of a photograph are primary points of departure in my working process. I am an only child of only children, and so have been the recipient of hundreds of family snapshots dating back to the turn of the century. Both my father and grandfather were extremely active amateur photographers, and as a result, my interest in this type of image making has been almost genetically predispositioned. As an artist trained in printmaking, I look to the photo as a source, rather than the end result. Through the process of discovery, manipulation and layering, I find that my emotional and intellectual connection to the family archive increases, allowing deeper understanding of all aspects of the act of taking the shot--the objective of the taker, the gaze of the subject, and the spontaneous moments that are captured with the snap of the shutter. It is this precise moment, suspended in time that I find most engaging. By focusing on these, I have been able to embark on a rediscovery of the snapshot.