Benjamin.Donaldson.ART.01@aya.yale.edu

Benjamin Donaldson was born in Hanover, New Hampshire in August of 1969.  In 1998 he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography from the Massachusetts College of Art.  He continued his photographic education, receiving his Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University School of Art in May, 2001.  For his thesis work at Yale, Donaldson concentrated primarily on making photographs that were an exploration of the ways that nature is imitated in mass manufacture, and how it abounds in everyday life.  The critical stance taken in these photographs was one of a study of edenic loss, and an attempt to reveal the subversions by mass manufacture of the darker elements of the natural world.  This uneasy coupling of motif and reality was the basis of the ongoing project Imitation of Nature. Since graduating from Yale he has continued this series of photographs, as well as several new projects including Vista.  This latest group of photographs are concerned with how people interact with nature from sanctioned areas, such as rest stops or areas where one comes to appreciate a landscape or wildlife through a mitigated experience.  Another project explores the lives of priests.  This group of photographs is concerned with the intense searching inherent in a spiritual life, and the juxtaposition with the everyday surroundings containing the banal and commonplace within these men's living spaces.  His photographs are in the collection of the Yale University Libraries as well as several private collections.  Publications include Artnews, Details, The New Yorker, Nylon, The Guardian(UK) and The Yale University Literary Magazine. He is also included in Photo District News 30 emerging photographers of 2003.  Commercial clients include Yale University and private clients.  He is on the faculty of the International Center of Photography, and has been a Guest Lecturer at Yale University School of Architecture and LaGuardia Community College.  His work is available on consignment from Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn.  Slides are available for viewing at both Art in General and White Columns Galleries in Manhattan.  Benjamin Donaldson currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.