As part of the 8th edition of the FotoWEEK DC festival, Cross MacKenzie Gallery is pleased to present the work of two talented photographers: Anna Beeke and Léa Eouzan, in partnership with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. These two artists explore the confrontation between man and nature in the contemporary world.

Anna Beeke’s interest is focused on the mysterious forest. There are countless stories that involve humankind venturing beyond the structured limits of civilization into the chaotic labyrinth of the woods and Beeke’s project owes much to literature. Without the myth, folklore, and the fairy tale, there would be no “Sylvania”. 

“Across cultures and centuries, the forest has occupied a unique place in our collective imagination. Good and evil, chaos and peace, beauty and terror: these oppositions are as fundamental to the forest’s liminal landscape as they are to the human experience.  Sylvania is a composite “forest-land” of photographs that explores the intersection of nature, imagination, and myth in the American woodlands. Through images of both real and depicted nature, Sylvania examines the differing characteristics of these woods—from Washington to Vermont to Louisiana— while also seeking the Forest Universal rooted in them all; it explores the physical presence of the forest in the contemporary world as well as its metaphoric presence in our collective imagination.”   Anna Beeke 

Beeke was born in Washington, DC, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.  Most recently, she was included in PDN’s 30 2015, and was one of four finalists for the Wallis Annenberg Prize. Her project Sylvania has won several awards and grants, including the WIP/LTI Lightside Materials Grant (2012), the Magenta Flash Forward Competition (2013), and the Syngenta Photography Award’s Judge’s Choice (2013). It was also a finalist in the 2014 Daylight Photo Awards, receiving a Juror pick from Julian Cox, chief curator of the De Young Museum. For her project Amsterdam, NY, Anna was a recipient of the 2010 too much chocolate + Kodak Film Grant and included in reGeneration2, a book and travelling exhibition curated by Switzerland’s Musee de L’Elysee. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally across five continents since 2009. She holds an MFA from the School of Visual Arts (2013), a certificate in photojournalism and documentary photography from the International Center of Photography (2009), and a BA from Oberlin College (2007).

Léa Eouzan’s body of work titled, “Intersections” explores similar themes, but expands her focus to include images of more urban environments as well.  Her photographs poignantly display man’s careless interventions into the landscape and express a visceral sadness in response to man’s neglect of his own creations.  In “Crying House”, the artist projects the small dwelling’s “feelings” for being abandoned and left to decay.  

Eouzan graduated in 2006 from the National Superior School of Photography in Arles (with distinctions). The same year, The Fotografia Festival di Roma offers her her first group exhibition. The release of a part of her work around memory’s places was published in the 4th edition of the "Storia della Shoah" in Utet editions and recently in "Future Images" (Motta 24 Ore Cultura) and "Afterwards" (Thames & Hudson). 

Her first solo exhibition was presented at the gallery Le Bleu Du Ciel (Lyon) in May 2009. This work led her to create a book, the "Guide Historique d’Auschwitz", published in January 2011, to Autrement editions.

In 2012, in Bastia (Corsica), the gallery Gour & Beneforti exposed Histoire (s) Contemporaine(s). A year later, she was the photographer for the event KM 1, a residence orchestrated by the French Alliance in Manila in collaboration with the Nicephore Niepce Museum of Chalon-sur-Saône. The exhibition, “What remains, what disappears” resulted from this work of capturing memories for the museum.

Léa will travel from France to join us for the celebration during FotoWEEK DC, November 10th.

For more information and to request digital images contact: Rebecca Cross becca@crossmackenzie.com

Read the review in the Washington Post Here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-the-galleries-the-intersection-of-nature-and-man/2015/10/29/6f55bd42-7cbe-11e5-afce-2afd1d3eb896_story.html