Erika’s Bio

Erika Blumenfeld (b. 1971, USA) is an internationally exhibiting artist with a BFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design in New York.

Blumenfeld’s work is informed by her longstanding interest in physics, light, and the natural world. From that vantage point, the artist sets forth in exploring and documenting the subtle shifts in atmospheric, astronomic and environmental phenomena. Developing new photographic processes and techniques to accomplish her intent, Blumenfeld methodically documents the subtle incremental changes that light makes over time. Her photo-based works and video installations yield an account of light’s trace.

Blumenfeld was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008. In the same year she was accepted into the New York Foundation for the Arts’ Fiscal Sponsorship Program for her ambitious work, The Polar Project. Blumenfeld has also received grants from the Creative Capital Foundation, the Land Rheinland-Pfalz Kultusministerium in Germany, and the Polaroid Corporation. She was Ballroom Marfa’s inaugural artist-in-residence, and was awarded a Special Editions Fellowship from the Lower East Side Printshop in New York.

Blumenfeld has been awarded rare opportunities to create her work in non-traditional studio environments. In 2001, she worked on a Bioluminescence project with Latz Laboratory at the Scripps Institute for Oceanography in La Jolla, California. In 2004, the artist worked on a video piece documenting a full lunar cycle at the McDonald Observatory in Ft. Davis, Texas. In January of 2009, Blumenfeld went to Antarctica for a month as the artist-in-residence of ITASC (Interpolar Transnational Art Science Constellation) and SANAP (South African National Antarctic Program) where she produced several new bodies of work relating to The Polar Project. Some of these works premiered at the 2nd Biennial at the End of the World exhibition in Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego), Argentina (2009) and continues to travel.

Blumenfeld’s installations have been exhibited widely in galleries, museums and non-profits in the US and abroad, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York; Ballroom in Marfa, Texas; Willem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Center for Contemporary Non-Objective Art (CCNOA) in Brussels, Belgium; DiverseWorks Art Space in Houston, Texas; Färgfabriken Norr in Östersund, Sweden; Galerie der Stadt Mainz-Brückenturm in Mainz, Germany; Hertfordshire University Galleries (UH Galleries) in Hertfordshire, England; Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, Norway; Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico; OCA in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Photographic Resource Center in Boston, Massachusetts; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), in Portland, Oregon; Santa Fe Art Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Stadtgalerie in Kiel, Germany; UNM Art Museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Visual Studies Workshop Gallery in Rochester, New York.

Blumenfeld has been featured in Art In America, ARTnews, and Camera Arts magazines, and appears in the books Photography: New Mexico published by Fresco Fine Art Publications (2008), The Polaroid Book (2005, 2008) published by Taschen, and Arte Da Antartida (Art from Antarctica) published by Goethe-Institut (2009), among others.

Blumenfeld’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas; the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico; The Polaroid Collection; and the University of Texas, Austin, Texas.