Donna Cameron

Columnist, Author, Editor

Donna Cameron is the author of an extensive body of work which includes oil paintings, watercolors, photos, films, videos and CD-ROMs, and has been an exhibiting visual artist since 1970. Her paper emulsion films have been collected by the Museum of Modern Art, NY Dept. of Film & Media (1990-CURRENT). Her current installation work explores the relationship of the traditional image to the digital frame, and the function of an image within the framework of inter-media. She has been an educator since 1969, and has taught and lectured at NYU (1992-CURRENT) and the School of Visual Arts, NY (1998-2000).

Cameron is the 1998-1999 Elodie Osborne Fellow of Film & Video, and has been awarded three MacDowell fellowships (1997, 1998, and 1999) and two Jerome fellowships (1988, 1992) for her imaging work in painting & drawing on film. Her work is distributed by the MoMA Circulating Film & Video Library, which is THE library used by film scholars worldwide, and is in included in collections at NYU (1995); Anthology Film Archives (1981); Pacific Film Archive (1991); The Donnell Library (1998), and Fordham University (2000). Cameron has collaborated with filmmaker Shirley Clarke (1987), performance artist Jack Smith (1985-6), dancer/choreographers Oleo Pomare (1996) and Nanette Bearden (1996), with musicians Don Militello (1991,1996), Mark Stewart (2003), Fred Kaufman (1997), Barbara Siesel (1995,97), painter Dr. Vivienne Thaul-Wechter (1995-2000) and others. She was included in the MoMA's 20th century retrospective of visual art, "MoMA 2000, Making Choices, Part 2", in June, 2000, and the 20th century retrospective, “The Color of Ritual, The Color of Thought: Women in Avante-Garde Film in America", 1944-2000, The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, in September, 2000.

In January, 2001, The United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded Cameron an International Patent Allowance for her invention: "Cinematic Paper Emulsion".Donna Cameron is the recipient of many scholarships and is internationally educated. She began her studies at The Rhode Island School of Design in painting and drawing in the early 1970s, branching out at RISD to animation and video. With a full scholarship she completed her BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1980, with a focus in photography and film and a minor focus in life drawing. Rather than pursue a traditional MFA in the programs at which she was accepted at the Masters level, Cameron opted to design her own course of inter-disciplinary study, in order that she might develop her invention, the Cinematic Paper Emulsion. This included years of full time study of landscape painting in Paris, France in the early 1980s at Atelier Herbo, the private studio school of the late post-impressionist master Ferdinand Herbo, who at that time was noted as chief marine landscape painter of France; the Art Students League of New York, 1984-86, where she was twice the recipient of the Jose de Creeft Memorial award for painting; at the Sorbonne (French, Art History); video at The American Center, Paris; photography at the International Center of Photography (NY).

Cameron is a Senior Editor of Manhattan Arts International Magazine (1995-CURRENT). (Now on-line at manhattanarts.com). She was previously the Florida Keys Correspondent for the Miami Herald; publishing credits include exhibit catalogues for MoMA; Independent Film & Video Monthly.

In 1997 Cameron was nominated to NYU's University Council of Arts Educators. She is an exhibiting member of the Federation of Modern Sculptors and Painters of New York. For seven years, she has served on the Board of the New York Film & Video Council.

Donna Cameron lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Many of her images are inspired by New York City’s urban pulse: its people, buildings, rivers, bridges, and by the Hudson River School inspired landscape of Brooklyn's Prospect Park.

AWARDS & PROFESSIONAL HONORS

2003 The Program for Media Arts, Rockefeller Foundation Grant Nominee

2002 MoMA Film Archive, acquisition of film, World Trade Alphabet, February

Museum of the City of New York, acquisition of 9/11 footage for archive

2001 Patent Awarded, U.S. Patent & Trademarks Commission for Cinematic Paper Emulsion

2000 Elodie Osborne Award in Film & Video, MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH

MacDowell Fellow, May

The Museum of Modern Art, NY, video Shirley Clarke in Our Time selected

for screening in MoMA 2000: Making Choices, Part 2, June

Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, film Fauve shown in The Color of Ritual, The

Color of Thought, Women in Avant-Garde Film in America, 1944-2000, September

Fordham University, acquisition of film paintings, Cherie & Peterborough Forest

1999 MacDowell Fellow, May

1998 New York Film & Video Council, nominated to the Board, May

MacDowell Fellow, June/July

MoMA Film Archive, acquisition of film Die Honigbiene, September

1997 University Council of Arts Educators, nominated to membership, February

Federation of Modern Sculptors and Painters, nom. to membership, January

1996 MoMA Film Archive, acquisition of 16mm film, NYC/Joshua Tree

New York Film /Video Council's 50th Anniversary Celebration, MoMA, NY,

Video MOTHER'S PRAYER selected to represent the 1990s

1995 Black Maria Film Festival, Jurors' Citation Award for the film Autumn Leaves

1994 Black Maria Film Festival, Jurors' Choice Award for the film NYC/Joshua Tree

1992 Films & Videos promoted by MOMA Circulating Film & Video Library

1991 Museum of Modern Art Film Archive, acquisition of films, TYGER TYGER & Fauve

1990 Jerome Foundation Grant & Fellow

1987 Jerome Foundation Grant & Fellow

1985 Jose De Creef Memorial Award for painting, The Art Students League, NY, NY

1984 Jose De Creef Memorial Award for painting, The Art Students League, NY, NY

San Francisco Cinemateque, Highlights of the Year for the film, Unicorn, SF, CA

1980 American Academy of Motion Pictures, Animation Division, NEWSW, Chicago, IL, May

1978 Cannes Film Festival, screening of film, Magnet, Cannes, France, May

PERMANENT COLLECTIONS

The MacDowell Colony Collection NY, NY (film paintings)

Museum of Modern Art, Film & Video Archive, NY (films & videos)

Museum of Modern Art, Circulating Film & Video Library, NY (film paintings, films & videos)

Museum of the City of New York, NY (films & videos)

Museum of Broadcast and Television, NY

Library of Congress, Washington, DC

The Donnell Media Center, NY Public Library, NY (films & videos)

Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley, CA (films & videos)

Light Cone, Paris, France (films & videos)

Anthology Film Archives, NY

Elmer Bobst Library, Avery Fisher Media Center, NYU, NY (films & videos)

Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA (films & videos)

Fordham University, NY (film paintings)

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