Rebekah Burgess, PhD, is a photographer, photo historian and works-on-paper collections specialist. Born and raised in Humboldt County, Burgess started practicing photography at an early age, learning how to develop film and prints in her stepfather's darkroom. Rebekah's first opportunity to show her work was in a two-person Mother-Daughter exhibit at Plaza Design in 1992 entitled 'Points of View'. Since then she has been honored to show her imagery in a handful of local solo and two-person shows, as well as group shows in the Bay Area and New York City. Driven by her love of photography, Rebekah received a PhD in Photo History, working in Photography, Drawings, Prints, and Map collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum, Life Magazine, and the New York City Department of Parks. With decades of hands-on work with some of the world’s finest prints, Rebekah brings a thoughtful and enthusiastic eye to the boundless possibilities of creativity within the photographic medium. We welcome Rebekah back home to Humboldt after a lengthy and successful career in New York City.

Thank you to the Redwood Art Association for having me in to participate with this show. Thank you artists, for sharing your extraordinary work! I was stunned by the incredible talent and heart displayed on these gallery walls. About twenty years ago I juried a photo show in Humboldt County. Thinking back to the work in that exhibit, digital media was in its nascent phase, inching in among the traditional photographic formats. Its applications and implications in photography were just starting to dawn on us as photographers.

Looking around the entries this year, I’m so excited by the array of creative and unique ways people are using and evolving the media, both in pixels and pigment. It allows us to work with light in entirely new ways, to invigorate historical processes, this huge spectrum that photography encompasses keeps expanding.

I’m struck by the way many of these images are in dialogue with one another throughout the gallery – some thematically, or by process, or by tone. I encourage you to take in that interaction of how these pieces reflect and correspond to one another. On that note, I urge all participating artists to start this conversation with each other, too – it will enrich your work.

This month shares the photographer Adam Fuss’ birthday and I read a quote from him that seems so fitting for this assembled group of imagery: “I feel that what’s important is an image, and how you get to that image – I don’t want any rule on that. I want the freedom to do a photogram use a point and shoot camera, make a camera, use a scanner, I don’t think it matters, it’s the image that’s critical.”

- Rebekah Burgess, July 18, 2023