Joe Rudko, Intermediate Techniques of Photography

PDX CONTEMPORARY ART presents Intermediate Techniques of Photography, an exhibition of images by Joe Rudko that reconfigure the traditional notion that photography is a method for capturing and fixing moments in time.

My work addresses photography’s continuously expanding role as a tool to communicate ideas, feelings, and truths – and its tendency to shift shape in how it is defined and understood as a medium. Using collage, drawing, and sculpture I manipulate, obscure, and otherwise distort found photographs, cutting and tearing them to reveal their limitations as representations of personal history. This disruption demystifies the illusion of the photograph, exposing its increasingly malleable interpretation and mortality as a physical object. My interventions give these anonymous, once-antiquated snapshots a new life and ability to live beyond their fading past.

• Joe Rudko

Joe Rudko is a graduate of Western Washington University and has shown broadly in both solo and group exhibitions throughout the Northwest including shows at PDX CONTEMPORARY ART (Portland, OR), Roq La Rue (Seattle, WA), LxWxH (Seattle, WA), Photo Center Northwest (Seattle, WA), Whatcom Museum of Art (Bellingham, WA), and Greg Kucera Gallery (Seattle, WA) among others. He has been the recipient of the Future List Award and two Art Walk Awards from City Arts Magazine as well as the Vermont Studio Center Fellowship Award. His work was featured on the cover of indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie’s 2015 album Kintsugi and is included in the collections of the Portland Art Museum, Fidelity Investments, and the private collections of Dorothy Lemelson, James and Susan Winkler, and Driek Zirinsky.