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About US
Monica Jane Frisell and Adam Scher met in early 2021. They have been traveling together ever since. Both have a strong belief that everyone has a story to share and has the right to be heard and documented. Fun Fact: They were in the same middle school and never knew it - same year and class and everything!
Monica Jane Frisell is a photographer living and working nomadically throughout the United States. Her love for photography started in high school where she often spent hours in the darkroom skipping class. Frisell is predominantly self taught, learning on the job as an assistant and working in a photo lab as a black and white printer and film processor. She received her BA from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, where she ran the public darkroom, adding to her skills in analog color processes and continuing to master black and white printing and processing.
Working in analog film and putting emphasis on large format film and wet darkroom practice, she pushes to combine documentary elements with fine art. Her first chance to exercise this union of craft came while volunteering in relief work in Nepal after the 2015 earthquake where she documented domestic workers with interviews and portraits. Taking this format, in 2017 Frisell moved into a 35 year old RV and hit the road to ask everyday Americans to speak on their relationship with their country while making large format portraits. This work culminated in a solo exhibition and self published magazine entitled Looking Forward: Portraits from an RV.
Fast forward to July 2021, when Frisell together with her work/life partner Adam Scher, began crisscrossing the United States creating Portrait of US, an evolving, contemporary, audiovisual portrait of ordinary individuals within the landscape of today’s America. Her work strives to find connections between people and cultures in a time when division is too often highlighted.
Adam Scher grew up in Seattle WA, the son of a radio journalist and a customer and Union representative with local theaters. No surprises, then, that an appreciation for things audio and visual began at an early age. Early experiences at KNHC, a high school run public radio station in Seattle, and his education at Lake Washington Institute of Technology, provided him with a technical knowledge of recording, and a keen understanding of both visual and audio storytelling tools. Also an avid cycler, he started biking long distances in his early 20s, and a trip from Seattle to San Diego in 2011 firmly cemented a passion for travel. In 2014, Scher biked three full months across Europe, from Belgium to Portugal, photographing the trip as he went along and writing daily observations into an online journal. In 2015, the same year in which he completed the Adventure Cycling Association leadership training course, Scher was involved in a cycling accident that forced him to stop traveling to undergo a full year of treatment and recovery. As soon as he was able to get back in the saddle, he was adamant to test his abilities as a solo traveler again, and completed a three month long trip through the US South.
Meeting his partner Monica Jane Frisell in early 2021 became the catalyst that now finds Scher drawing on these earlier life experiences and passions and living full-time as a nomadic documentarian working within audio and photographic mediums. Scher’s artistic inspirations come from being on the road, seeing new landscapes, discovering the history of different places, and meeting new people to interview. He is forever motivated to explore what has not been seen.
Scher’s edited recordings for Portrait of US add another layer of intimacy to Frisell’s photos of those the couple meet in their travels and are an integral part to the continuity and strength of the project.
Awards and Residencies for Portrait of US:
Currently Located in Seattle, WA - catching up. Open to new opportunities locally and nationally.
Review Santa Fe Participant. 2023. CENTER. Santa Fe, NM. 2023
Lyndonville, VT Partnering with Satellite Gallery. 2023
Innisfree Village, Crozet, VA. 2023
Artists in Residence - Sulfur Studios, Savannah, GA. 2023
Artists in Residence - North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC. 2023
Artists in Residence - Art and History Museums of Maitland, Maitland, FL. 2022-2023
Artists in Residence and Fellowship - Green Box Arts, Green Mountain Falls, CO. 2022
Artists in Residence - Cleveland Print Room, Cleveland OH. 2022
Artists in Residence - ON:View Residency in Sulfur Studios. Savannah, GA. 2022
Artists in Residence - Monroe Community College, Rochester, NY. 2021
Artists in Residence - Green TARA, North Hero, VT. 2021
Exhibitions for Portrait of US:
Upcoming:
Portrait of US. Massilon Museum, Massilon, Museum. 2024
Past:
Portrait of US. Art and History Museums of Maitland, Maitland, FL. September, 2023
Portrait of US. Sulfur Studios, Savannah, GA. March-April. 2023
Group Exhibition - Rooms to Let, Cleveland, OH. 2022