Shoshannah White

Biography
Shoshannah White is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice is informed by scientific inquiry and the rapidly shifting environment.  After relocating to the desert from Portland, Maine, White became inspired by the electrical monsoon storms, the cracked earth, and the resilient plant life found in the Southwest.

White juxtaposes the electric charge of lightning with the pull of magnetism to reveal the invisible electromagnetic forces at play in everyday life. In her mixed media Lightning works, White uses long exposures to capture the experience of being in the flat desert where it is possible to see multiple storms at once. She blurs the distinction between earth and sky by covering the surface of the photograph with wax, casein, graphite, mica, gold, and silver leaf. The Magnetics series comprises photograms made by activating earth dust and metal filings with magnets on vintage and contemporary light-sensitive paper. By presenting negative/positive inversions of her images, White highlights the binary nature of electric and magnetic currents.

In her cast works, White looks at the desert using different media. In her castings of cracked earth, bark, yucca pods, and cactus needles she studies how the ongoing drought affects local flora. The drawings on synthetic paper explore overlapping cellular and crystalline networks.

Shoshannah White is one of Southwest Contemporary’s 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now. She has participated in artist residencies in the United States, the Canadian Maritimes, and in Svalbard, Norway, within the Arctic Circle. Her work is included in the Dancing Bear Collection of  W.M. Hunt, the Judy Glickman Lauder Collection at the Portland Museum of Art, Dickinson College, and the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. White’s images have been featured in Photo District News, Newsweek, Psychology Today, Details, Der Speigel, and the Wall Street Journal. White is based in Portland, Maine, and Roswell, New Mexico.

Positive-negative charge, reversing polarities, attraction-repulsion, and energetic pulses are currents running through our physical world, yet are also clear metaphors for our internal worlds. From the branching patterns of lightning to the organic shape of magnetic fields, these works are studies in particles and energy that is constantly reorganizing itself.  — Shoshannah White

Education
BFA Photography, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia 

Solo Exhibitions
2022
Setting a Pulse, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
Shoshannah White, Perimeter Gallery, Belfast, ME
Shoshannah White, Maine Maritime Museum, Bath, ME

2018
Strata, Jewish Museum of Maine, Portland, ME

2017
University of Maine, Farmington, ME
In Light of Polarity, Goodyear Gallery, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA

2014
Undercurrent, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME
Undercurrent, Tides Institute, Eastport, ME

2013
Undercurrent, Grand Manan Art Gallery, New Brunswick, Canada

2009
Nye Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard, MA
Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME

2006
Whitney Artworks, Portland, ME

2004
Maine State House, Augusta, ME

2002
Brooklyn Fireproof, Brooklyn, NY

2000
Flame, Brooklyn, NY

1996
Robert May Gallery, Louisville, KY

Group Exhibitions
2022
Material Agency, MassArt x SoWa, Boston, MA
Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM

2021
Into Action, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME

2020
Open Borders, Studio 21, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
2020 Vision, Richard Levy Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

2019
Line in the Sand, Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM
In Flux, Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, ME
Princeton Day School, Princeton, NJ
Melt Down, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME

2018
Expanse, New Art Center, Newton, MA
Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, ME

2017
Speedwell Projects, Portland, ME
Forecast, Tides Institute Museum of Art, Eastport, ME
Black Ice, SPACE Gallery, Portland, ME

2016
Able Baker Contemporary, Portland, ME
Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, ME
Brooklyn Fireproof, Bushwick, NY
Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, ME

2015
Portland Museum of Art – Intervention, Portland, ME
Bates College Museum of Art, Lewiston, ME
Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, ME

2014
LC Bates Museum, Hinkley, ME

2013
Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, ME
Foc’sle Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, ME

2012
Install 2, Corey Daniels Gallery, Wells, ME
Portland Museum of Art, Artist – Intervention, Portland, ME
Portes, Hellenic Society, Mytilene, Greece
Rose Contemporary, Portland, ME
Pace Gallery of Art, Fryberg, ME

2011
George Eastman House, Museum of Photography, Rochester, NY
Foc’sle Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts
University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, ME
Rose Contemporary, Portland, ME

2010
Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, Falmouth, ME
Center for Maine Contemporary Art , Rockport, ME

2009
Whitney Art Works, Portland, ME
Churchill Gallery, Newburyport, MA
Center for Maine Contemporary Art , Rockport, ME

2008
Museo Raccolte Frugone Villa Grimaldi, Genova, Italy
Center for Maine Contemporary Art – Biennial, Rockport, ME
Churchill Gallery, Newburyport, MA
Robert Berman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Whitney Art Works, Portland, ME

2007
Benham Gallery, Seattle, WA
Bloom, Whitney Art Works, Portland, ME
Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME
Greene Contemporary , Sarasota, FL

2006
33 Collective, Chicago, IL
Whitney Art Works, Portland, ME

2004
Ft. Collins Museum Contemporary Art, CO
Sam Shaw Gallery, North East Harbor, ME
Maine State House, Augusta, ME

2003
Zero Station, Portland, ME
Center for Photography/Woodstock, NY

2002
Brooklyn Fireproof, Brooklyn, NY
The Red Gallery, Savannah, GA
Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME

2001
Brooklyn Fireproof, Brooklyn, NY
Front Room Gallery, Portland, ME

2000
Flame, Brooklyn, NY
Brooklyn Fireproof, Brooklyn, NY

1999
White Space/ Photo District News, New York, NY
Revolving Museum, Boston, MA

1996
Dead Space Gallery, Portland, ME

Collections
Bates College Museum of Art
Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Dickinson College Museum of Art
Glickman-Lauder Collection at the Portland Museum of Art
WM Hunt’s Dancing Bear Collection

Awards
2021 One of 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now, Southwest Contemporary
2018 Maine Arts Commission, Project Grant, Funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts
2017 Kindling Fund Grant through  SPACE Gallery, a regranting program of the Andy Warhol Foundation
2016 Maine Arts Commission, Project Grant, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts
2015 Berkshire Taconic A.R.T. Fund, Grant to support Arctic Circle Residency
2013 Maine Arts Commission, Good Idea Grant, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts
2012 Americans for the Arts, Public Art Network, Year in Review: Top 50 installations of the year
1992 Varnedoe Memorial Scholarship, Four year incremental scholarship for BFA, Photography
1990 Gordon Lewis, Merit Award

Press
2023
Shoshannah White – Setting a Pulse, Maine Arts Journal, Winter

2020
Michael D. Lemonick, A Vision of Ephemeral Ice, Scientific American, January 17

2019
Temporary Ground & Strata by Shoshannah White, Fraction Magazine, December
Kyra Schmidt, in conversation: Shoshannah White on photographic experience and environmental impact, Aintbad Magazine, August 19

2018
Meet Shoshannah White, Boston Voyager, December 7
Street Art for the Climate: An Interview with Shoshannah White, MIT Climate Portal, June 25
Daniel Kany, Art review: A new perspective on old, cold landscapes, Portland Press Herald, January 21

2017
Katy Kelleher, Profile on Shoshannah White, Art New England, November/December Issue

2015
Hunting Beauty on Maine’s Art Museum Trail, Wall Street Journal, July 15

2012
Shoshannah White, The Maine Mag, March

Publications
2011 The Unseen Eye – The Dancing Bear Collection of W.M. Hunt, Aperture Publication, Fall
2002 The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes by Christopher James

Press Release
2022 Shoshannah White: Setting a Pulse at Richard Levy Gallery
2021 A Few of Our Favorite Things at Richard Levy Gallery
2020 Art on Paper Booth C09 with Richard Levy Gallery
2020 2020 Vision at Richard Levy Gallery