Jerry Uelsmann (American, b. 1934)
Jerry Uelsmann is an American photographer known for his surreal and whimsical scenes. Uelsmann grew up in Detroit and developed a passion for photography while in middle school. His first solo exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art opened doors for him and allowed him to become the forerunner of photomontage in America. His darkroom overlap technique allowed him to create imaginative landscapes that resembled René Magritte’s surrealist paintings. His innovations in photography have earned him awards such as the Guggenheim Fellowship grant (1967) and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship(1972). His photographs are part of the permanent collections of major museums all around the world. Navigation Without Numbers exemplifies Uelsmann’s craft of double-exposure, which involves compiling more than one image together. In this print, Uelsmannuses at least four images to create the surreal seaside scene.
Marinna Guzy (American, b. 1991)
Marinna Guzy is a young sound artist, filmmaker, and writer. She was drawn to sound art through an intersection of her artistic passions and the “musicality of the world around her.” Guzy works in a variety of fields, from filmmaking to sound recording and editing. As a dedicated filmmaker, she is currently in pre-production stages for her first feature film, Beneath the Steeple. When creating the companion soundscape, the companion soundscape for Uelsmann’s Navigation Without Numbers, Guzy’s goal was to “convey a sense of the visual layers present in Uelsmann’s photograph.” Guzy focused on the ocean imagery, stating, “In my desire to mirror the visual, the sonic grounding of the work is also the ocean, represented in the most straightforward way with minimal processing.” Guzy’scomposition artfully uses sound to embody the “state of limbo” and the crashing of waves that envelop the viewer/listener.