Jumeirah Essex House Exhibits Award-Winning Portraits

  • October 5, 2010
Jumeirah Essex House Exhibits Award-Winning Portraits
Jumeirah Essex House announced the special exhibition Alison Wright: Portraits on view in the South Gate Gallery, located in the hotel's South Gate restaurant, from September 30 through December 31, 2010. Organized by Jumeirah Curator Katherine Gass, the exhibition features captivating images of people from remote world cultures that Wright, an award-winning, New York-based documentary photographer, has taken over the last decade on her travels to the Arctic, Asia, Africa, Central America and the Middle East, among other destinations.

Wright's work is represented by the National Geographic Image Collection and has received many awards including the Dorothea Lange Award in Documentary Photography and the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award (twice). Her writing and photographs have been published in a number of books and worldwide periodicals such as National Geographic publications, Smithsonian, Time, O: The Oprah Magazine and The New York Times, among others.

The hotel will host an opening reception for the artist at 6:00pm EST on Wednesday, October 6th, where Wright will be signing copies of her memoir, Learning To Breathe. Ms. Wright's inspirational memoir, with a forward by HH Dalai Lama, is the story of her survival of a near-death accident while on assignment in Laos and directly reflects the passion and dedication she exhibits for her craft, traveling in extreme situations and often putting her life at risk.

In addition to the exhibition of her portraits, Wright has been selected to be the hotel's Artist-in-Residence for November 2010, where she will take her camera into Central Park. Also selected for the Artist-in-Residence program in 2010 is the architectdesign team ArandaLasch, whose work is currently featured at the International Pavillion of the Venice Biennale. The Artist-in-Residence program, now in its fourth year and begun by Katherine Gass, has hosted artists such as painter Mark Innerst (2006), photographer Atta Kim (2006), filmmaker Eve Sussman (2008), and sculptor Paula Hayes (2009).