Donna Clovis The Unburdened Spirit: Cuba

November 19–January 7, 2004
Opening Reception: Tuesday, November 18, 6pm to 8pm
Artist Talk:  Tuesday, November 18, 4:30pm to 5:30pm

Vantage Point Gallery a partnership between the International Center of Photography and The Point CDC
940 Garrison Avenue
Bronx, New York 10474

Donna Clovis’s work is a creative exploration of Havana as if captured in the time warp of the 1950s. Her use of color is poetic, and she documents life through architecture, people, and vintage cars. Clovis has always been intrigued by Cuba.“My teachers and professors always spoke about the love of their country and its beauty,” she states. “Whenever they had the chance, they would share photographs of their families, homes, holidays, and culture. I promised myself that if I ever had the chance to visit Cuba, I would.” Her wish was realized in 2002, when her digital work was accepted for exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana.

Clovis has an extensive background as a photojournalist, with over twenty years in writing and photography. She has worked as a producer and editor for ABC Television in New York, and as a freelance journalist, editor, and producer for The Trenton Times newspaper in New Jersey. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, Cuba; the State Museum of Trenton, the Montclair Museum of Art, and Grounds for Sculpture Museum, New Jersey; and Agora Gallery and the New York Historical Society, New York. Clovis is a recipient of the 2000 McCloy Fellowship from the American Council on Germany, where she photographed survivors of the Holocaust. She is also a recipient of the 1997 Albert Einstein Award in Education and the New Jersey Governor’s Award. In 1999, she was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in feature writing, and in 1998 and 2002, she received Puffin Foundation grants in photography.

Clovis is a graduate of the College of New Jersey in Trenton, New Jersey, and has also attended the International Center of Photography and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has published several books, including Plantation (Xlibris Corp, 2000), and she was co-editor of Struggles for Freedom: An Anthology of Multicultural Experiences (Bryant & Dillon, 1994). Clovis works as a freelance photographer, consultant, and journalist in Princeton, New Jersey.