ART 30 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JUNE 18-24, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com Los Angeles photographic artist and Center for Photographic Art member Paula Riff started with a degree in Japanese language. Her several years in Tokyo, where she worked as an interpreter, are imprinted in her distinctive artwork. In Japan, Riff played with patterns and color without losing a sense of elegance. Her works on paper with lensless photography and alternative processes—cyanotype and gum bichromate—were celebrated. Upon returning from Japan, Riff interned at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s photo department and enrolled in a beginning darkroom class, where she learned how to process film and make silver gelatin prints. That was the turning point and the beginning of her adventures with historical processes. The most beautiful pieces Riff left behind are minimalist compositions on her signature dark background, a stage for her small botanical forms in rather decisive colors. That’s only one aspect of her work. Her images can be abundant and dense, always toying with contrast. When Riff died in 2021, the CfPA and fine art photography online portal Lenscratch founded an award in her name, with experimental photographers in mind. “Since Paula worked with traditional historic photographic processes, such as platinum printing, gum printing, cyanotype, photograms, it seemed that Carmel—being the birthplace of West Coast photography, where many of the early photographers pursued those processes,—was a good place to have the award,” says Ann Jastrab, CfPA’s executive director. “Especially because she was using those historical processes in such a new and exciting way.” Jastrab first became acquainted with Riff in 2007. During the pandemic, Riff was diagnosed with colon cancer, and would ultimately die within the year. Jastrab had worked with the founder of Lenscratch—also a dear friend of Riff—to create the award in 2021 in her honor. Since then, the Paula Riff Award has recognized five artists, selected from hundreds of submissions. Now CfPA is opening a show titled Changing the Narrative to celebrate Riff and the group of American innovators in photography honored by the award. The first awardee was Katie Shapiro, whose body of work includes a photo book about Big Sur combining black-and-white photography and collage, which reintroduces colors to her world. “Visualizing things that cannot be seen” is the mission she shares on her website, a mission that perhaps Riff could recognize as her own. The qualities of Riff’s work were once summoned by an award juror as playful playfulness—handmade, challenging and a little quirky. The 2022 awardee, Chicago-based artist Aimee Beaubien, certainly shares those characteristics. Her ceiling photographic installations are layers of images—plants, body parts and other natural forms—acting as fragments of some hallucinogenic upside-down magical forest that include a blue plush hand, hanging and ready for a shake. The weirder the better is the motto, and Beaubien’s outlandish creations make for a strong argument here. In a cohort of women, a single man stands out: Korean Canadian photographer, videographer and educator Minwoo Lee. Based in Houston, he earned the award in 2024, a declared rebel when it comes to the visual traditions and attempting to fight ocularcentrism through lens-based media. Lee’s works can be color-stripped, but they are bursting, merging photography and sculpture into one, often making for a surprising visual experience. Deeply rooted in photographic history, the camera has traditionally served Western ideals and ocularcentrism, aiding colonial expansion. According to Lee, this legacy persists within the image’s language. That’s why his own work investigates foundations of photography, deconstructing the camera’s mechanics and the recording process. A very different photographic art comes from Paula McCartney, the 2023 Riff Award winner. McCartney makes photographs, books and ceramics. She is inspired by the natural world, how light activates environments. But the human experience—particularly motherhood and how it impacted her as an artist—also influences her work. She is attracted to clean lines and clarity; her artistic patience is palpable and brings results, as in In/Direct Alignments, the series she created immediately upon receiving the award. “I combined my photography and ceramic practice to explore the interconnectedness of light and shadow; presence and absence,” she wrote about this body of work. “The series uses the language of black-and-white analog photography with its negative and positive, minimal palette and strong contrast.” Finally, the 2025 award went to Denver-based interdisciplinary artist Marni Myers, who works with alternative photographic processes. “Like Paula, Myers experiments, sorts, and cuts,” juror Paula Tognarelli wrote, arguing in favor of Myers. “She also repurposes cyanotype output, which adds a layer of unplanned uncertainty to all of her artwork endeavors. She checked all the boxes.” This “visual alchemist” explores dream-like states through minimal, imperfect layers. Through the alternative photographic process of cyanotype printing, Myers makes silent discoveries, showing her tactile compositions, textures and soft tonal shifts. Riff’s first photo book, Works on Paper, was published in 2021 but is currently out of print. Changing the Narrative: The First 5 Years of Paula Riff Award Winners includes work by Aimee Beaubien, Minwoo Lee, Paula McCartney, Marni Myers and Katie Shapiro. On display June 20-July 26. Opening reception 4-6pm Saturday, June 20. Center for Photographic Art, San Carlos and 9th, Carmel. Free. (831) 625-5181, photography.org. Innovation Club Five years in, CfPA’s Paula Riff Award has showcased photographers with original insight. By Agata Popęda Above: Minneapolis-based Paula McCartney’s In/Direct Alignments series helped her win the 2023 Paula Riff Award. Below: 2022 awardee Aimee Beaubien from Chicago poses with one of her “body parts.” They are two of the six artists featured in the new exhibit Changing the Narrative. AIMEE BEAUBIEN COURTESY OF CFPA
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