Silver Eye

Silver Eye is thrilled to announce the second edition of our regional biennial survey. 

This biennial was created to fill a gap in the cultural landscape; we needed to share the work of the very best photographers in our region, (which we decided to define as the wide and rich space between the art capitals of New York City and Chicago, with Pittsburgh at its center.) We wanted to create a thorough, thoughtful, and engaging look at photography in this region, something more than just picture on our walls. We wanted to create a conversation within a community that is deep, fun, honest, and provocative.

The result is Radial Survey, a biennial exhibition of the preeminent emerging and mid-career photo based artists working within 300 miles of Pittsburgh. Our goal is to highlight work and support artists from places that are sometimes overlooked in the national photography conversation. Radial Survey is conceived not to identify a regional style or movement, but rather as a proposition: that artists in this space engage with logics, flows, histories, and mythologies that differ from those defining the faster-moving densities of very large cities.

After dozens of studio visits and working with curatorial consultants from across the radius, for this second iteration of the biennial we have identified a group of eight outstanding artists from across the radius whose work explores how their personal identities intersect with the histories of places they are from, and where they work. 

Radial Survey will be accompanied by a symposium, taking place the opening weekend of the show, as well as an exhibition catalogue. Save the date for an opening party on Thu, Nov 4, 2021.

Radial Survey Vol. II is generously support by a generous grant from the National Endowment from the Arts as well as our sponsors and patrons.

Premier Sponsor
Duolingo

Contributing Sponsors
Mary McSorley
Chris & Dawn Fleischner
Dr. Mark Shlomchik & Laura Heberton-Shlomchik
Sokolin Wines
Sprezzatura
Jeanne Cunicelli & Lawrence Wood
Brian Wongchaowart

Premier Patrons
Susan Abramson
Lexi Bishop & Wade Kramm
Craig Dunham & Caryn Rubinoff
Stephanie Dietz & Warren Shlomchik
Robert & Laura Ferris
Stephanie Flom & Deanna Mance
Carleigh & Kevin Graves
Harinder Singh & Ramninder Hansra
Christine Holtz & David Scott
Mark Gladwin & Tammy Shields
Alesia & Dan Kaplan
Evan Mirapaul & Sybil Streeter
Alissa Meade & Brett Moraski
Tim Gyves & Abby Slovonic
Glenn Olcerst & Barbara Talerico
Douha Safar & Mounzer Agha
Ben Speiser & Valentina Vavassis
Viju & Anoo Verghis
Dario & Kate Vignali

Supporting Patrons
Karen Abrams
Linda Benedict Jones & Christopher Jones
Kate Davis Booker & Mac Booker
Dima Kislovskiy & Yasaswi Kislovskiy
David Merritt
Alison Brand Oehler & Paul Oehler
Teresa Palacios & Walter Hubsch
Beth Rosner & Toren Finkel
Kenneth Spruill & Lara Washington
Mary Anne Talotta
Helen Trompeteler & Liz Dewar
Alexandra West & James Edson
Barbara Weissberger & Eric Moe

Participating Artists

1. Ryan Arthurs He received his MFA  from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Ryan was a visiting professor at Carleton College, and was a photography teaching assistant at Harvard University. He was a printmaking Artist-In-Residence at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado and The Bothy Project, Isle of Eigg in Scotland. 

   In 2020 Arthurs founded Rivalry Projects and serves as Director and Curator. Rivalry is founded on his competing motivations as an artist and curator to create an arts space that can function as both a site of exhibition and production of contemporary art. 

2. Nakeya Brown holds an MFA from The George Washington University. Her work has been featured internationally and nationally in recent solo exhibitions at Hobart & William Smith College (Geneva, NY, 2021), The Delaplaine Art Center (Frederick, MD, 2020); and in group exhibitions at the Katonah Museum (Katonah, NY, 2021), and Higher Pictures Generation (Brooklyn, NY, 2020). 

   Brown’s photography has been published extensively and with recent appearances in Insecure (Seasons 2-5), Time, Vogue, Wallpaper*, and The New Yorker. Her work has been included in photography books MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora, Girl on Girl: Art and Photography in the Age of the Female Gaze, and Babe.

3. Anique Jordan is an artist, writer and curator who looks to answer the question of possibility in everything she creates. Jordan has lectured on her artistic and community engaged curatorial practice as a 2017 Canada Seminar speaker at Harvard University and in numerous institutions across the Americas. As an artist, she has exhibited in galleries such as Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery of York University (AGYU), Art Gallery of Guelph, Doris McCarthy Gallery, the Wedge Collection, Art Gallery of Windsor, Gallery 44, and Y+ Contemporary.

   She has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships and i was the 2018-19 Artist-in-Residence at Osgoode Hall Law School and the most recent recipient of the Hnatyshyn Emerging Artist award. 

4. Njaimeh Njie is a photographer, filmmaker, and multimedia producer. In her practice, Njie uses the built environment as means of exploring how the past has shaped contemporary life. Her work has been exhibited at spaces including the Carnegie Museum of Art and Pittsburgh International Airport, and she has presented at venues including TEDxPittsburghWomen, and Harvard University.

   Njie was named the 2019 Visual Artist of the Year by the Pittsburgh City Paper, and the 2018 Emerging Artist of the Year by the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. She earned her B.A. in Film and Media Studies in 2010 from Washington University in St. Louis.

5. Jay Simple is a son, a brother, a father, a friend, an artist, an activist, and a scholar led by his ancestors and Allah. He was born in Chicago and raised in Philadelphia, where he current resides. He is black and his life is eternal and multidimensional.

6. Raymond Thompson Jr. is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and visual journalist based in Austin, TX. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. His academic journey includes an MFA in Photography from West Virginia University, an MA in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and a degree in American Studies from the University of Mary Washington. Raymond explores how race, memory, representation, and place combine to shape the Black environmental imagination of the North American landscape. He won the 1619 Aftermath Grant (2023) and the 2021 Lenscratch Student Prize (2021). Raymond has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions, including the Fotofest Biennial - Ten by Ten: Ten Portfolios from the Meeting Place 2022-23 (2024). His work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Raymond is the author of Appalachian Ghost, published in 2024 by the University Press of Kentucky.

7. Hannah Altman is a Jewish-American artist from New Jersey and holds an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Through photographic based media, her work interprets relationships between gestures, the body, lineage, and interior space.

   She has recently exhibited with the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Blue Sky Gallery, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, and Photoville Festival. Her work has been featured in publications such as Vanity Fair, Carnegie Museum of Art Storyboard, Huffington Post, New York Times, Fotoroom, Cosmopolitan, i-D, and British Journal of Photography. She was included in the 2020 Critical Mass and Lenscratch Student Prize Finalists and in the Silver Eye’s 2021 Silver List.

   She has delivered lectures on her work and research across the country, including Yale University and the Society for Photographic Education National Conference. Her first monograph Kavana, published by Kris Graves Projects, is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Thomas J Watson Library.

8. Nadiya I. Nacorda is a Blasian artist currently living and working in Syracuse, NY. Her work draws heavily from notions of intimacy, affection, displacement, secrecy and generational trauma. She is an MFA candidate at Syracuse University and has exhibited at Candela Books +Gallery the Midwest Center for Photography among other spaces.