Attasalina
04.19.1977
Born in Venice Beach, Ca. and raised between Los Angeles and the wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest, my work is a fusion of the urban experience and the insights afforded by the natural world.
I did not seek photography, photography sought me. In exploring the arts programs at Ventura College when I was young, I eventually enrolled in a photography class. It had been my intention to transfer to University and achieve an academic degree, however, life took me down another path.
After struggling for several years to work and attend school, I had the opportunity to become the manager for a professional photography studio that also had it’s own photo lab and custom dark room. I gave up my goal of getting a degree and took the full time position.
Word got around that I knew how to handle a camera and projects came my way which eventually led to photographing full time as well as exhibiting fine art for many years. Becoming my livelihood, my social identity, my creative self expression, photography is now a defining aspect of my existence.
For the past seven years I have been chronically ill and disabled which caused me to close my photography business. I have continued to photograph a little with my first camera, a Nikon FE2 35mm, as well as with my plastic Holga 120 camera and as a way of coping with the trauma of constant pain, fatigue, disablement and isolation. Returning to my roots of black and white film and just being with the process without attachment to the result has also been it’s own healing.
Exhibitions
Group
2013 “Group SC 2009” Medium Festival of Photography, San Diego, Ca
2010 “Autumn Lights” Pershing Square, Los Angeles, Ca
2010 “Group SC 2009” MOPLA – MINARC/Gallery Skart, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, Ca
2010 “FADA LA Art Show” LA Convention Center, Los Angeles, Ca
Solo
2009 “Freedom” Firebird Plaza, Ojai, Ca
2007 “Strength Is Beauty” Valley of the Moon Gallery, Ojai, Ca
2007 “Strength is Beauty” Ojai Art Center, Ojai, Ca
2006 “Liberation” Secret Location, Ojai, Ca
2006 “Flowers Within” Upstairs Ghost Gallery, Ventura, Ca
2005 “Cow and the Moon: A Traveler’s Photographs” Ojai City Hall Gallery, Ojai, Ca