Light in Purse
2012 - 2018
Underexposed:
Women Photographers from the Colllection
High Museum of Art
2021
In Christina Price Washington’s series Light in Purse, a piece of photographic paper becomes a visual logbook of her movements and a day’s activities. By placing the light-sensitive paper inside the bag, each instance of her opening her bag is automatically recorded as outside light filters in and strikes the paper, which results in the monochromatic forms once the print is developed in the darkroom. The paper in the bag also naturally becomes bent and folded as the day goes on, adding a weathered texture that complements the abstract forms of the exposed surface.
High Museum of Art. 2014. “Light in Purse #4.” Accessed December 31, 2020.
Every Day - Ongoing
Los Angeles, Ca
2018
A Los Angeles Times review by Leah Ollman highlights an exhibition, “Every (ongoing) Day,” at Arena 1 Gallery in Santa Monica. This show features the work of 15 artists who engage in unique daily artistic practices, challenging conventional notions of creativity and routine.
The exhibition presents a diverse range of approaches to daily art-making. Some artists, like Jody Zellen and Pam Posey, use their daily practice to maintain their observational skills and artistic dexterity. Others, such as Karl Baden and Nancy Floyd, create long-term photographic self-portraits documenting personal changes over decades.
Ollman particularly emphasizes Christina Price Washington’s purse photograms, describing them as “fresh and surprisingly beautiful” abstract compositions created by placing light-sensitive paper in her purse throughout the day. These works are notable for their connection to the history of chance operations in art.
The review also spotlights “The Sleep Piece” by Laura Cooper and Nick Taggart, a collaborative project involving daily Polaroid photographs of their bed taken every morning since 1993. Ollman praises this work for its conceptual rigor and intimate portrayal of partnership.
Overall, the exhibition demonstrates the “inexhaustible potential of the everyday” in art, highlighting how routine practices can yield profound insights into time, culture, and personal experience.
(Ollman, Leah. “Review: One bed photo per day, for years and years: Mesmerizing moments from an art show about daily life.” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 2018.)
Gallery 307
University of Georgia
2016
Christina Price Washington & Nancy Floyd
Portfolio Show at the Atlanta Photography Group
2016
This exhibition was curated by Lisa Sutcliffe, who was the curator of photography at the Milwaukee Art Museum
The Photograms of Christina Price Washington
Christina Price Washington—who has work in Suburbia, currently on view Hagedorn Foundation Gallery—is concurrently working on a different set of images that deal her “mistrust of the lens.” Christina places a piece of light sensitive photographic paper into her purse everyday, and allows her actions, objects and own touch create light-based compositions on the paper. Motivated in part by questions about the value and uniqueness of photographs, Washington said that the resulting photograms are imitating the objects in her purse. Her process has an unusual anti-indexical relationship to the resulting composition—these works are very abstract and simultaneously feel both intimate and sterile. Her unique photograms intersect with works by László Moholy-Nagy—or more recently, those of Walead Besthy. And while best seen in person, she has scanned them for easy viewing.
Frank, Jill “The Photograms of Christina Price Washington” Burnaway, Dodge & Burn. Written on March 12, 2013