Profile

Jeannie Pearce is a Visiting Professor and has been on the faculty of the University of the Arts in the Media Arts department in Philadelphia since 1983. She received an MFA degree from the University of Delaware in 1978 after completing her undergraduate work at the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1976. Ms Pearce has taught all levels of photography including summer technical workshops for faculty. Her primary focus is in digital imaging.

From 1997 to 2006, while teaching part time, Pearce acted as Corporate Relations and Development Officer for the Society for Photographic Education. She formerly served on the boards of the Print Center, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and the Mid-Atlantic Region chapter of the Society for Photographic Education. In the early 80s she was the director of Muse Gallery in Philadelphia. Pearce continues to do freelance and fine artwork, exhibits and teaches workshops.

Pearce is a recipient of the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, and several Venture Fund Awards. Her work is in collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Los Angeles for Photographic Studies; Hewlett Packard; the State Museum of Pennsylvania; University of Maryland, Baltimore, Md.; Haverford College, Haverford, Pa.; University of Delaware, Newark, Del.; LaGrange College, Ga.; Murray State University, Ky.; Bryn Mawr College, the William and Uytendale Scott Memorial Study Collection, Pa.; as well as private collectors.

Selected group and solo exhibitions: 2010 – 1976 include:
Bambi Gallery, Phila. Pa.; Philadelphia Airport; State Museum of Pa., Harrisburg, Pa.; Schumacher Gallery, Westover School, Middlebury, Conn.; Rochester Contemporary Art Center, Rochester, N.Y.; Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.; Silicon Gallery, Philadelphia, Pa.; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pa.; The Print Center, Philadelphia, Pa.; Austin Spirit Gallery, Austin, Texas; Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Creiger Dane Gallery, Boston, Mass.; University of Illinois, Chicago Gallery, Chicago, Ill.; Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, Pa.; University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.; Lamar Dodd Art Center, LaGrange College, LaGrange, Ga.; Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies, Los Angeles, Calif.; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, Del.

Artist Statement
I am collector. It is a combination of passion, compulsion and habit that my long-term involvement with photography encourages. As photographers we collect our tools and equipment and stash away thousands of images whether on film or as digital files. Overall, my main photographic curiosity has involved nature and objects. I am interested in how we see and how we interpret the way the camera captures information. It is intriguing how an object or place, combined with traditional or digital processing, can be transformed to suggest a new meaning.

My current collection of Bird Digiscopes explore my interest that birds have been omni present in myths, fairy tales and symbolism and are icons for present environmental concerns. For me, these portraits represent a dichotomy of emotions and observations: beautiful-ugly, attraction-repulsion, comfort-distress, sweet-nasty, friendly-hostile, and optimistic-pessimistic.