My environmental portraits, of young individuals dressed in school uniforms, seek to create a complex body of work and provoke questions concerning identity, education, and class system. Each image exists as a single portrait within a series, a community of photographs. The subjects, dressed in traditional uniform attire, gaze in acknowledgment of the audience. Each young student stands within his or her domestic space, yet, there exists an awkwardness in the way each presents himself or herself. An overwhelming similarity exists within the physicality of the individuals, the colors and structure of the uniforms, and the sterile environments. They are so similar, yet distinctive.
Sarah-Marie Elisabeth Land continues to create images that blur the line between the fictitious and the real. She studies photography at Saint Louis Community College, in addition to holding a MA in French, Saint Louis University, and studying French Culture & Civilization at Middlebury College. She has been selected to exhibit artwork at Project Basho, Philadelphia; Wall Space Gallery, Seattle; St. Louis Artistsâ?? Guild; Semmes Gallery, Texas Photographic Society, San Antonio; and, Heuser Gallery Bradley University, Peoria. Her affinity for the Fine Arts and French also led to work overseas teaching English in Paris. She resides in St. Louis.
Andrea Land holds an MFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI Master of Fine Arts
Fellowship, 2006-2008) and a BFA in photography and BA in French with a minor in art history from Missouri
State University. Her artwork has been exhibited extensively both nationally and abroad, including The Center
for Photography at Woodstock, Woodstock, NY; Irvine Contemporary, Washington, D.C.; the Edward Hopper
House, Nyack, NY; Oakland Art Gallery, Oakland, CA; Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Novato, CA;
Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA; Project Basho Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; and, Acte2 Gallery,
Paris, France. Recently, her photowork was exhibited in the Flash Forward Festival in Toronto, Canada and the
Julia Margaret Cameron Award Exhibition at the Palais de Glace in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Land's work has
been reviewed in both The Washington Post and The San Francisco Chronicle and published in PQ#99
Photography Now 2010 (Front Cover), PDN, Aperture, The Photo Review, and Shots International Photography
Journal. She has taught art courses at Missouri State University, Missouri Fine Arts Academy, and UC Berkeley
(Academic Study Associates). During the academic year of 2005-2006, Land taught English in Paris, France and
also completed an intensive French language and art study at the Université Paul Valéry III in Montpellier,
France.
