Leigh Kane

I have a life-long fascination with the ever-increasing presence and power of photographic imagery in the contemporary visual landscape–-including billboards, family portraits, X-Rays/PET/CT scans, direct mail advertising, and photo-sharing in social media. My task as an artist is both to sort the substance from the subterfuge and find the substance in the subterfuge. Thus I make and find photographs (and build them into photographic installations and digital videos) that invite viewers to join me in a shared quest to understand the world through the pictures that surround us. I am currently photographing men in proximity to the natural world called “Mr. Lovelies,”—recently included in juried shows at Black Box Gallery in Portland, Oregon and The MPLS Photo Center in MN and reviewed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

My project “A Legacy of Restraint” is in the book "Reframings: New American Feminist Photographies" (Temple University Press) and my one-person exhibition: “Next of Kin” was reviewed by the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Weekly. I’ve been included in exhibitions at museums, galleries, educational and alternative spaces around the country such as White Columns Gallery and The New York Academy of Sciences in NYC; The Print Center and Temple Gallery in Philadelphia, The MPLS Photo Center and Minneapolis Institute of Arts in MN.

On the home front, I am an insomniac living and teaching photography at the state university in Kutztown, PA. I make my home with the artist Rick Salafia, our two children and adopted shelter mutt. In addition to adoring friends and family, studio and garden, I love to read and nap on the express bus to New York and wake up in the city that never sleeps.