B.A. Van Sise is an American photographer and author. He has worked as a travel photographer, and collections of his fine art photography has been exhibited in public installations by US museums.

Career

B.A. Van Sise is a graduate of

Fordham University Fordham University () is a Private university, private Jesuit universities, Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the The Bronx, Bronx in which its origina ...

, with degrees in both Visual Arts and Modern Languages. He has produced photo essays for publications including the ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creat ...

''. Van Sise is also a travel photographer, through various publications and as a Nikon/''AFAR'' travel photography ambassador.

Solo exhibitions

In 2016 he assembled the exhibition entitled ''Children of Grass''. He started the project by taking photographs of contemporary well-known poets in elaborate scenes and poses, matching those photos with the poet's own work. Each of the poets assembled have claimed to be inspired at some point by Walt Whitman, and these photos will be exhibited in places including the

Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery The National Portrait Gallery is a historic art museum between 7th, 9th, F, and G Streets NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Founded in 1962 and opened to the public in 1968, it is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections f ...

. In 2017 Van Sise exhibited the first outdoor public installation to be held at the

Museum of Jewish Heritage A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

, entitled ''Eyewitness: Photographs''. The exhibition was composed of 31 portraits of Holocaust survivors living in New York City. Each portrait was expanded to 13 feet high and five feet wide, printed on vinyl. In 2018 he exhibited his collection ''Sweat'' at the

Peabody Essex Museum The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, US, is a successor to the East India Marine Society, established in 1799. It combines the collections of the former Peabody Museum of Salem (which acquired the Society's collection) and the ...

. Each of the photos exhibited a before and after photo of an athlete, first as they normally looked, and next just as they completed a training session. Athletes included members of the

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associat ...

, New York Cosmos, the Gotham Girls Roller Derby League, and competitors in the New York City Marathon. In 2019, his exhibition ''A Portrait of Poetry'' was shown at the Center for Creative Photography and the Poetry Center at the University of Arizona. Van Sise is also known for his practice of creating only one photograph per day. His daily photographs were the subject of a retrospective display at the Kansas City Public Library between 2019 and 2020 in the exhibition ''One Second''.

Books

Van Sise also published the poetry book ''Children of Grass: A Portrait of American Poetry'' in 2019, which received an IPPY award in 2020. ''The Times of London'' also named it one of their 2019 “books of the year”. ''The Booklist'' wrote of the work that, “Van Sise has created a singular and irresistible volume of poetry and collaborative visual lyricism that will enthrall poetry lovers and break down the hesitation of those wary of the form.”https://www.booklistonline.com/Children-of-Grass-A-Portrait-of-American-Poetry/

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Sise, B.A. Living people Fordham University alumni 21st-century American photographers Travel photographers Year of birth missing (living people)