A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

On This Page

Sonja Ruth Thomsen

Professor, Adjunct

Contact

Bio

BA, 2000, Kenyon College, Gambier OH; Post-Baccalaureate in Photography, 2002, San Francisco Art Institute, CA; MFA, 2004, SFAI. Exhibitions: Bauhaus Archiv, Berlin; Gallery f5.6, Munich; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; Aperture, NY; Higher Pictures, NY; Reykjavik Museum of Photography; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; Silverstein Gallery, NY; John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan WI. Publications: Un' apparizione di superfici, Luca Panaro, Italy, APM editions; "GR-09022017", Fotogalleriet, Oslo, SKREID Publishing; Earth Now: American Photographers and the Environment, New Mexico Press; Orion Magazine. Bibliography: Chicago Tribune, PDN magazine, Art Contemporaries, New City Art, The New Yorker. Collections: Art Institute of Chicago, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, DePaul University Art Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum, Reykjavik Museum of Photography. Awards: Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowship for Individual Artists, Milwaukee Arts Board New Work Commission.

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This course will explore the methods, history and potential of medium format film photography. Students will learn to use a wide variety of medium format cameras including the Mamiya 7, Mamiya RZ 67, Mamiya 645, Pentax 67, Holga and various Hasselblad systems. Using a wide variety of black and white and color medium format films, students will become familiar with several film development techniques, and both analog and digital printing methods to create traditional and experimental photographic work.

Class Number

1819

Credits

3

Description

Students are introduced to using light as a means for creative control. By studying the light around us, we are able to better serve our work through specific choices with regard to existing or ambient light and light augmented by other sources of illumination. Students learn the rudiments of metering, mixing light sources, including the use of on-camera or hand-held electronic flash within existing lighting conditions. This is a practical course that enables students to better control and use light and lighting in their work.

Class Number

1527

Credits

3

Description

Every idea has a medium most suited to its execution, but often not the one in which the artist is working. This class considers new ways of translating ideas into other media to develop a sense of possibilities beyond the straight photograph. Conceptual art has given us an understanding of the triggers that might provoke an investigation of layers of meaning within the simplest of ideas. Assignment encourage students to think beyond the usual way they work and include the use of collaboration, installation, audio, video, live feed, the internet, performance, and performative uses of photography.

Class Number

1817

Credits

3

Description

Every idea has a medium most suited to its execution, but often not the one in which the artist is working. This class considers new ways of translating ideas into other media to develop a sense of possibilities beyond the straight photograph. Conceptual art has given us an understanding of the triggers that might provoke an investigation of layers of meaning within the simplest of ideas. Assignment encourage students to think beyond the usual way they work and include the use of collaboration, installation, audio, video, live feed, the internet, performance, and performative uses of photography.

Class Number

1531

Credits

3