Peter Miraglia
American, born 1953
Photographic work concentrates on psychological portraiture, the narrative of the heart and the mind.
Previous work includes an in depth exploration of the people of Zanzibar, in East Africa. Current work focuses on portraits from India. The cultural/geographic areas of focus have been the Indian States of Kerala, West Bengal and Rajasthan. The people photographed include simple villagers, as well as people involved in traditional arts, such as religious theater, classical Indian dance, and martial arts.
The body of work from the past thirty years can be seen as intimate, enigmatic, and emotionally complex, with a suggestion of peoples’ inner lives and personal stories. Through the dramatic use of staging, color, shadow and light the portraits become a kind of psychological theater. In the India work the settings become more striking, people being placed within carefully composed environments, often with riotously hued textiles of local origin. As portraits the work makes allusions to traditions in European and Asian painting, as well as the history of photographic portraiture.
Past work [including the Africa series] consists of black and white toned gelatin silver prints. Current India work consists of richly saturated color Archival Pigment Prints.
Work has been widely exhibited, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Allentown Art Museum, The Alternative Museum (New York), Delaware Art Museum, and Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery (New York). Awards received include the National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship [1988], the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship in Visual Arts (2005, 1999, 1997,1987), The Photo Review National Competition, First Prize [1994], and Finalist, The Center for Documentary Studies/ Honickman Book Prize in Photography (2004,2002).
The work has been reproduced in many publications/catalogs and is included in numerous public and private collections, including Philadelphia Museum of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art and the California Museum of Photography.
The artist has traveled extensively around the world. He has a continuing interest and involvement in the field of Psychiatry.
http://www.petermiraglia.com/templates/7/Text_page.cfm?pID=2786
Person TypeIndividual
Terms
- male
