Denison’s Studio Art program welcomes Cynthia Greig. Greig spoke with the Introduction to Art History students on Friday, September 23. Greig was here during the opening of the art gallery and was able to talk with students at that event also. Born in Detroit, MI, Greig studied printmaking at Washington University in St. Louis, MO after which time she worked in the curatorial departments of various art museums in the Midwest and Northeast. Her experience with museums and background in art history combined with a fascination with looking at old family photographs have greatly influenced her thinking about the role both photographs and public institutions play in preserving the past and constructing our concepts of reality.
After receiving her Master of Arts in modern art history from the University of Iowa in Iowa City IA, where she worked with Dada scholar Stephen C. Foster and photo historian Joy Sperling, she studied filmmaking. She later worked on a number of independent and experimental films which eventually led her to study photography with Joanne Leonard at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The concepts behind her photographs, installations and videos are inspired by the early debates regarding the invention of photography and are influenced by the work and ideas of Marcel Duchamp, Christian Boltanski, David Lynch, Cindy Sherman, among others. Her gallery and museum exhibitions include The Alternative Museum in New York, Houston Center for Photography, San Francisco Camerawork, Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Michigan, Gallery 44, Centre for Contemporary Photography in Canada, and Focal Point Gallery in England. In 2002 she received the Houston Center for Photography Fellowship Award and in 2001 she was awarded an artist residency at Light work in NY.
