BIO
John Moses is an award-winning photographer, based in Fresno, California.
Born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, Moses grew up with the rolling farmlands of Berks County and the low mountains east of Reading for landscapes. In the 1980s, when he moved west to Fresno, he traded those tamer views for the vast stretches of San Joaquin agriculture and the distant peaks of the Sierra Nevada range.
Moses taught writing, literature, and film studies for forty years, first in Ohio and New York and then in California. He was head of the Film Program at Fresno City College and a founding member of Fresno Filmworks, a nonprofit film society in the Central Valley. He has been a member of the Spectrum Art Gallery in Fresno since 2015.
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
From an early age, I began looking at the world through a viewfinder. In my teens, I traded my Kodak Brownie for a Minolta SR-T 101, built a darkroom in my parents’ basement, and later took photography and film classes in college. As a professor of film studies, much of my professional life focused on image studies—teaching students to “read” the mise-en-scène and cinematography of motion pictures. For my photography, I draw inspiration from visual and literary arts, but what I most enjoy is rambling through natural and urban settings with camera in hand.
My chief intent is to present some new perspective to the viewer, to reveal something extraordinary in the ordinary. For “Projections,” a series of composite images exhibited at Spectrum Gallery in 2018, I blended film locations with ghostly traces from the movies filmed in those spaces, merging reality with the imaginary signifiers that movies use to tell their stories. In 2021, for “Metonymies,” I explored the relation of metonymic figures of speech to visual language, creating both abstract, minimalist images as well as those based on more recognizable parts of some whole.
Much of my recent work has focused on wildlife—especially capturing species native to the San Joaquin Valley, like tule elk and gray foxes, which are common even in our local urban spaces.
Publications
Light, Glorious Light 2023. Single-Image Celebrations from LensWork Readers. Ed. by Brooks Jensen and Crystal Baird. LensWork Publishing, 2023.
Trilogies 2022: Three-Image Collections from LensWork Readers. Ed. by Brooks Jensen and Crystal Baird. LensWork Publishing, 2022.
“Dredged, Långholmen,” Beach Reads 2: Lost & Found, Third Street Writers: Laguna Beach, CA, 2018, p. 14.
Awards
Juror Selection for “Celluloid Reflection,” Wandering Curves, New York Center for Photographic Art, Trees, 2024.
5th Place for “Sunburst,” 9th Annual Leaves and Petals International Online Art Exhibition, Fusion Art, September 2023.
First place for “Temperate House, Kew Gardens,” Metal in May, Chris Sorensen Studio and Gallery, May 2023.
Artistic Excellence Award for “Watchful,” 7th Animal Kingdom International Online Art Exhibition, Fusion Art, September 2022.
Honorable Mention for “Wistman’s Wood” (triptych), Photographic Arts in March, Sorensen Studio and Galleries, March 2022.
3rd Place for “The Great Court, British Museum,” Black & White Exhibition, Sorensen Studio and Galleries, January 2022.
2nd Place for “Grand Ave., LA,” 5th Annual Cityscapes Art Exhibition,” Fusion Art, July 2020.
Honorable Mention for “Butte County, Barbed Wire,” Photographic Arts, Sorensen Studio and Galleries, February 2020.
Honorable Mention for “Cypress Tunnel, Point Reyes,” Trees, New York Center for Photographic Art, 2019.
Honorable Mention for “River Taf Estuary, Laugharne, Wales”, Waterscapes Art Exhibition, Fusion Art, September 2018.
Honorable Mention, “Arts Alive in Agriculture,” Documentary Photography, Fresno Arts Council, Fresno City Hall, March 2018.
Best in Show for “Half Dome Illuminated,” The Natural World Art Exhibition, Fusion Art, July 2017.
Solo Exhibitions
Gallery of Foxes, Spectrum Art Gallery, December 2022.
Metonymies, Spectrum Art Gallery, November 2021.
Projections, Airport Wing Gallery, Fresno International Yosemite Airport, February-May 2019.
Projections, Spectrum Art Gallery, August 2018.
Group Exhibitions
“Frames within Frames,” Praxis Photo Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, December 21, 2024-January 11, 2025.
"Empty Places: Abandoned Spaces,” Praxis Photo Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, November 16-December 14, 2024.
“New Works Members Exhibition,” Spectrum Art Gallery, February-March 2024.
“Metal in May,” Chris Sorensen Studio and Gallery, May 2023.
“Signature Works,” Spectrum Art Gallery, January-February 2023.
“Animal Beings,” Praxis Photo Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, July 2022.
Photographic Arts in March, Sorensen Studio and Galleries, March 2022.
Spectrum Members’ Exhibition, Spectrum Art Gallery, February 2022.
Black & White Exhibition, Sorensen Studio and Galleries, January 2022.
Cell Phone Photography Show, Spectrum Art Gallery, October 2019.
Carnegie Arts Showcase, July-August 2018.
“Valley Focus: On Photography,” Carnegie Arts Center, Jan.-Feb. 2018.
2nd Annual Best in Show Group Exhibition, Fusion Arts, Stephen Baumbach Photography Studio & Gallery, Palm Springs, CA, Nov. 2017.
“Animalia, A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX, Oct. 2017.
“Photography at the Emerald - Autumn Photography Exhibition,” Emerald Art Center, Springfield OR, Sept.-Oct. 2017.
“California,” Spectrum Art Gallery, July 2017
“New Members’ Show,” Spectrum Art Gallery, Jan. 2017
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