BRIEF BIOGRAPHy

Skip Klein is a Baltimore-based artist who uses photography to explore the human condition and his fascination with people and faces.  A graduate of Yale University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Skip returned to his childhood passion for photography after managing a health sciences mutual fund led to three severe bouts of treatment-resistant depression.  For Skip, carrying a camera is a way to be fully alive in the world and a good excuse to meet new people.  Skip has self-published six artist books, including Michaela's World, GingerSnaps, and Ventanas De Miguel.  He was the executive producer of the film Return to Cuba: In the Footsteps of Walker Evans, which premiered at the Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) in September, 2016, and resulted in a solo show of his still photographs at Roland Park Place and group shows of the group's still photographs at PhoPA Gallery in Portland, Maine Media Gallery in Rockport, and Fototeca de Cuba in Havana. Skip's portraits have won competitions, and two of his images are held in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

"Essentially the camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality and eventually in one's own."
--Susan Sontag, On Photography

I am a photographer because the process of making images provides the opportunity to stare at people and examine the human condition for a much longer time than otherwise would be socially acceptable.  For me, carrying a camera is a way to be fully alive in the world and a good excuse to engage with new people.  I started as a voyeur with a long lens, and over time have moved to shorter focal lengths which requires me to get close and make contact.  As I get closer, I can enter their world more fully and experience their human condition.  Over time, I feel that I am seeing more with my heart and eyes, and less with my analytical, technical mind.  By making exposures of others, I find myself exposing things deep inside me, first to myself, and ultimately to the viewer of my images.  When it is successful, the artistic process infuses the objective, "just the facts" documentary with just a bit of lyricism, in which the emotions, aspirations, and interpretations of the photographer and the viewer come into play.  I enjoy returning to my subjects to provide a physical print which captures the moment in time that we spent together.

CURRICULUM VITAE:

EDUCATION:
1983          B.A. Economics, summa cum laude, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
1986          M.B.A. Stanford Graduate School of Business, Palo Alto, CA.

AWARDS AND PRIZES:
Oct, 2015    1st Place--Portrait, Maine Media Creative Storytelling, Peter Hurley, Juror.

SHOWS AND EXHIBITIONS:
Feb, 2017     Visions of Cuba, Fototeca de Cuba, Havana, Cuba.
Sep, 2016     Return to Cuba: In the Footsteps of Walker Evans, PhoPA Gallery, Portland, ME.
July, 2016     Return to Cuba: In the Footsteps of Walker Evans, Maine Media Gallery, Rockport, ME.
Nov, 2015    Solo Exhibition: Cuba: In the Footsteps of Walker Evans, Roland Park Place, Baltimore, MD.

COLLECTIONS:
1984              Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.