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Virginia (Ginny) Mangrum
Virginia Mangrum, a part-time photo instructor in the art department at Diablo Valley College, is one of three featured artists at an exhibit opening March 15 at the DNJ Gallery in Los Angeles.
The exhibit, Night Lights, also features Helen K. Garber and Bill Sosin, and runs through May 1, with an artist reception scheduled for March 13. Mangrum’s body of work in the exhibit is titled “Night Moves II.”
A native of Redlands, CA, Mangrum received her bachelor of fine arts degree in photography from the California College of the Arts in Oakland and her master of fine arts in studio art from Mills College, Oakland. She has also studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and Summer Interdisciplinary Studies in Florence/Pienza, Italy. In addition to teaching at DVC, Mangrum works as an artist in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“Night Moves II is a continuing photographic examination of private places that uses voyeuristic observations at night to stress tension,” Mangrum said of her exhibit. “It isolates the anticipation associated with someone’s unpredictable arrival lying in wait.
“Darkness at its peak of the night is a place where many things can hide. Watching from within the dark shadows without being noticed is an activity that challenges all our society’s sensibilities and respect for another person’s privacy.”
Mangrum said her two Night Moves series of photographs grew out of several years of photographing urban spaces void of human activity, signage, or identification of purpose.
“I have always been interested in the psychological relationship that exists between the human’s participation and space inhabited previously in the public and currently in the private,” she said. “With each piece of work I do, I find there is more to consider while pushing the idea forward beyond the lens, medium and presentation. I think it will never be done.”
Mangrum’s first Night Moves exhibit was exhibited along side Bill Owen’s work at the same gallery in 2007. Her work is currently exhibited on the Online Gallery of California College of the Arts in Oakland. She has also exhibited her work at the Marin MOCA in Novato, CA; Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco; and Rayko Photography Center in San Francisco. Other select work has been exhibited at UCSF Women’s Health Center, San Francisco, CA; Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis, MD; Point 360 in San Francisco; and Palazzo Piccolomini Gallery in Pienza, Italy, among others.