PhotoAlliance 2025 Lecture Series: Tara Sellios & Julie Blankenship
PhotoAlliance
Apr 6th @ 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.Join PhotoAlliance for the 2025 lecture series with photographers Tara Sellios and Julie Blankenship. The “PhotoAlliance Lecture Series: Tara Sellios and Jule Blankenship” happens in the Bayfront Theatre, Building B, Third Floor, at Fort Mason Center For Arts & Culture (FMCAC) on Sunday, April 6, 2025, 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Each artist delves into themes of life’s impermanence, memory, and identity, using their distinctive media to uncover deep and thought-provoking narratives.
Tara Sellios, celebrated for her emotive still-life photography, contemplates the fragility of life and the passage of time. Julie Blankenship, known for blending found photographs with mixed media, explores the intersection of personal and collective memory, inviting reflection on how we shape our identities through imagery.
This special evening promises to be an inspiring exploration of how visual storytelling can transform fleeting moments into lasting, meaningful reflections on the human experience.
About The Artists.
Tara Sellios (b. 1987, Boston, MA) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans large-format photography, drawing, sculpture, and installation. She earned her BFA in Photography with a minor in Art History from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University in 2010. Sellios’s art delves into themes of mortality, impermanence, and fragility, often featuring meticulously constructed still-life compositions made from organic materials like animal skeletons and insects. Her process begins with watercolor sketches, culminating in dramatic, sensual photographs captured with an 8×10 view camera, rich in religious symbolism and contrasting light and shadow.
Sellios has exhibited nationally and internationally, with solo shows at Gallery Kayafas in Boston, C. Grimaldis Gallery in Baltimore, and Blue Sky Gallery in Portland. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions such as the PhotoBrussels Festival in Belgium and Castello Baradello in Italy. Her art is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Danforth Art Museum, and the RISD Museum.
In 2025, she presented her first solo museum exhibition, Ask Now the Beasts, at the Fitchburg Art Museum, blending art historical, literary, and biblical references to explore apocalyptic themes. Sellios is currently living and working in Boston.
Julie Blankenship is a visual artist in San Francisco’s Mission District. She’s known for her photo-based, mixed-media works, which have been exhibited widely, including solo shows and installations at Amsterdam Center for Photography in Amsterdam; and the American Institute of Architecture’s Center for Architecture + Design Gallery, Joseph Chowning Gallery, and The Lab in San Francisco. Her work has been featured in group shows at Yale University Institute of Sacred Music; Burning Man; European Cultural Center in Venice, Italy; Kirkeby Gallery, Liverpool, UK; Korean Culture and Arts Foundation in Seoul, Korea; Poorthuis Openluchtmuseum in Genk, Belgium; and Center for Photography International in Haarlem, Netherlands. She has shown at San Francisco venues including the Arts Commission, Walter McBean, Southern Exposure, and SF Camerawork galleries in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in literary and art magazines including Poets & Writers, Cut Me Up, Photo Trouvee; and other speculative and new southern gothic publications.
Today, she works with Visual Aid Projects + Archives, supporting the creative legacies of artists with AIDS. She was Executive Director of Visual Aid, an arts/social justice nonprofit organization, where she founded Visual Aid Gallery, and curated many exhibitions. She taught at San Francisco State University; and the San Francisco Art Institute, where she had previously earned a BFA in photography and an MFA in painting.
NOTE: Students are always welcome to attend PhotoAlliance lectures for free. Please tell our check-in volunteer you are a student and show your school ID. There is no need for students to pre-register for a ticket in advance.
