Erik Boker is an artist and photographer previously based in Los Angeles, (by way of New York, Alabama, Tennesee, Colorado, Rotterdam, et al) currently living and working in Porto. He received his MFA in 2013 from the Master Institute of Visual Culture/Academy of Art and Design (AKV) in The Netherlands. He also holds a Bachelor of Fine Art in photography and fine art from the ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles, and a Bachelor in Anthropology from Vanderbilt University.
He likes the dissonance and coherence between fiction, reality, culture, history, and their functions within photography, equal props to both the remarkable and unremarkable.
He is more, to quote Duchamp, "interested in ideas, not merely visual products."
Seen here are smatterings of self-initiated, short-term and long-term projects, varied commissions, lone experiments, wanderings, or happenstances.
He also likes food. And its culture. And for a significant amount of time devoted his attention to making books about it and making it look pretty not bad.
croutonsquaredpictures.com
Various group exhibitions have included The Griffin Museum of Photography (Boston), de ServiceGarage (Amsterdam), Eleni Koroneou (Athens), India International Center (New Delhi), photo-eye Gallery (Santa Fe), The Lennox Contemporary (Toronto), Galerie Art Mur (Montreal), Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins), and The Lodz Art Centre (Lodz, Poland).
Select Clients:
E.Baldi, Beverly Hills // Giorgio Baldi // Creating 010, Rotterdam // Coastal Living Magazine // Fox Verre Reizen // Amsterdam Luxury Magazine // Thomas Nelson Press // U.S. National Park Service // Bowtie, Inc. // Esquire Magazine, Russia // World Geographic Magazine, Taiwan // BMW Roundel Magazine
Contact:
erik@erikbokerphoto.com
Widows of Vrindavan, 2009
This series of photographs is a product of work made in an effort to raise awareness for a project initiated to help Indian widows by an Indian non-profit organization, the Guild of Service, and its progenitor, Dr. Mohini Giri. Dr. Giri has created an ashram for widows in Vrindavan, a holy city believed to be the birthplace of Krishna and a city known to attract widows who have been shunned by society and their families, stripped of their identities and their dignities, and forced onto the streets. Widows traditionally cut off their hair and wear white in a symbolic gesture, essentially waiting to pass on to the next life. The creation of these images is also an evolving exploration into the role of visual art and aesthetics in documentary, in the context of philanthropy, and is intended to reflect the dignity and pride that can be restored and preserved, and the power to affect change.
These photographs represent in part a journey taken from Vancouver, BC to Inuvik, the northernmost town in Eastern Canada accessible without the use of ice roads. In a 1983 VW air-cooled Vanagon named Lola, with compadres Julian and Nacho, we traversed approximately 5,000 km in 2 1/2 months of camping, and we only broke down 17 times.
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© ErikBokerPhotography 2018