Artist Statement
As I scroll through my body of work, I recognize a need to document a diverse community. There is so much that my eyes wish to explore that I cannot pigeonhole my work. I tend to work in a series which has led to an extensive body of work. I love portraiture and studying the face, highlighting color and texture. I love experimenting with fabric and objects creating collage and multi-media imagery. Travel is in my blood, hence my African Series, Women in the Visual Arts, Queen Mother of Progress and Black Motorcycle Series. I’ve worked in analogue and digital formats printing both color and black and white. Being a Moonchild means I observe nature, the sun, moon and the stars. I’m still on a voyage to constantly make new imagery.
Bio
Collette V. Fournier Biography
Collette V. Fournier has an MFA in Visual Arts from Vermont College and a BS from RIT in Communications and Photographic Illustration. Born in Harlem,she grew up in Brooklyn and Queens, NY. She is the retired staff photographer from Rockland Community College and adjuncts in the Photography Department. Fournier has worked as a staff photographer for The Rockland Journal-News, The Bergen Record, about...time magazine, and freelanced for The New York Post. Earlier in her career she worked in television as a production assistant and engineer trainee. Fournier was selected by the University of Rochester to photograph three educational tours to Senegal, West Africa and has traveled to Ghana, Togo and Benin with Chiku Awali African Dance and Culture. Fournier curated several exhibitions including a multi-sited exhibition “There is a World Through Our Eyes: Perceptions and Visions of the African American Photographer” exhibited at Rockland Community College, ACOR, Arts Alliance of Haverstraw, Rockland Center for the Arts and Blue Hill in 1993. Fournier has had fourteen one-woman exhibitions and has participated in over forty group exhibitions Fournier is an active member of Kamoinge Inc., an African-American photography collective, Timeless was published to celebrate the Collective’s 50th year. As a Soros fellow (OSI), she documented Post Hurricane Katrina. Through Atria Books, Kamoinge published Sweet Breath of Life, A poetic narrative of the African American family by Frank Stewart with writer Ntozake Shange. Fournier’s work is published in tabletop and textbooks and she is completing a personal narrative on her journey through photography. Fournier is a member of Society for Photographic Education (SPE) and was honored by AAUW for her photography. She received the Artist of Year Award by the County Executive Arts Awards and Arts Council. She shares her photography “Retrospective Series: Spirit of a People” with the global community. Fournier has been Artist-in-Residence at the CEJJES Institute in
Pomona, NY. and is on board to develop The Gordon Black Cultural Arts Center.
Her photography work is collected in Photography Collections Preservation Project (PCCP), Finkelstein Memorial Library, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Smithsonian Institute, WDC, Women International Archive, CA. and in private collections.
Fournier’s photographic achievements were recently recognized in Nyack’s News and Views.
http://www.nyacknewsandviews.com/2015/03/lai_collette-fournier/
Fournier’s recent exhibitions include:
Kamoinge:
From Tulsa to Minneapolis: Photographing the Long Road to Justice
https://socialdocumentary.net/exhibit/Collette_Fournier/5796
https://youtu.be/Pj2fDatSH50 An Interview for “Voices of Art” with Dr. Myrah
Brown Green
Photoville Fence 9th Edition Locations
Atlanta // October 6 – June 2021
Atlanta Beltline
New Orleans // November 14 – late February 2021
Lafitte Greenway
Sarasota // November 18 – February 23, 2021
Nathan Benderson Park
Seattle (8th edition) // Through fall 2020
Waterfront Seattle
Houston, TX
Drawing Room “Prayers for the Pandemic: Prayers for Progress”s Mask Project,
Curated by Prof. Eugenio Espinosa
Garner Arts Center Membership Exhibition: https://garnerartscenter.org/virtualgallery
“Vision 1020” Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba, NYC March- June 2020
https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=aCF2y9632ZX
MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora “In Conversation Visual
Meditations on Black Masculinity” African American Museum in Philadelphia” Oct. 4, 2019 – Mar. 1, 2020
Curator, “Collective Visions” RCC Faculty Photography Exhibition Nov. 2 – 30, 2019,
New City Library
“Two From B’klyn”, Collaboration with Fabric Artist MC Kirton, Catalyst Gallery, Beacon, NY, August 2019
Collette Fournier Photography 845-304-5465 fourniercollette147@gmail.com or
cfournie@sunyrockland.edu
www.collettefournerphotography.com IG: Judah_Fournier
