Like many of us during the pandemic, Carrie Schneider (2015 Creative Capital Grantee) relied on her phone for community and inspiration in the face of isolation. Using a room-sized camera she built herself, Schneider exposed screen grabs of social media feeds, images from her private archive, and shots of historical art and cinema directly onto photo paper. The resulting images, showcased in her exhibition Sphinx at MASS MoCA, are intimate glimpses into an artist’s life in isolation. Working at night to avoid photo exposure from sunlight, Schneider’s process entails cutting photo paper from long rolls by touch alone, leaving the images unevenly cut. Her current body of work pushes the photographs more fully into the sculptural realm, as she works with rolls of uncut chromogenic paper hundreds of feet long, taking on the scale of the museum’s architecture. The exhibition culminates with a 16mm film that reanimates the photographs on view, exploring the feminine subject and the abstracting potential of the camera.

Creative Capital is proud to have funded the creation of new works in this exhibition. Read Carrie Schneider’s Artist Diary to learn more about how she approaches her practice and her advice for other artists, and catch Carrie Schneider: Sphinx at MASS MoCA through September 2023. More information here.