Artist Talks at Moore College of Art & Design
Sponsored by Moore College and Aperturent
Transforming Natural Landscapes
How do contemporary artists move beyond documenting nature to reimagine our relationship with the environment? Join internationally recognized artists Amie Potsic, Julianna Foster, and Tony Bellaver for an engaging conversation moderated by Ashley Catharine Smith as they explore the many ways photography can transform the natural landscape into immersive, conceptual, and deeply personal works of art. Through large-scale installations, sculptural photographic constructions, experimental mixed-media processes, artists' books, and alternative photographic techniques, these artists challenge the traditional boundaries of the medium while addressing themes of memory, environmental change, materiality, and conservation. The discussion will examine how research, process, and experimentation reshape the photographic image into an expressive language that invites viewers to experience forests, coastlines, geological formations, and fragile ecosystems in new and unexpected ways. Offering insights into their creative practices and shared commitment to expanding photography beyond the printed image, this panel will inspire photographers, artists, and anyone interested in the evolving intersection of photography, landscape, and environmental storytelling.
Moderator
Ashley Smith
Ashley Catharine Smith is a Philadelphia-based artist working in photography, video, and fibers. Through the combination of these mediums, she creates visceral representations of the complexity of intimacy in its many forms. Her work is driven by her desire to understand how feeling rules and gender roles affect our interpersonal relationships and sense of self. It also aims to construct moments of closeness with the subjects of her photographs through their printed image.
Smith earned her MFA in Photography, Video & Related Media from the School of Visual Arts. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States at the Griffin Museum of Photography (2025), Philadelphia’s City Hall (2024), the National Liberty Museum (2020), and the Delaware Art Museum (2018) among others. From 2021 through 2022 her work was part of the group exhibition, Textile Art of Today, which traveled to museums in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. She is currently Photography Program Head at Moore College of Art & Design.
Artists
Julianna Foster
Julianna Foster's work explores the relationship between landscape, memory, and environmental change. Her ongoing project, Geographical Lore, investigates geological formations and coastal waterways, using photographic images as source material that are printed, sculpted, layered, and re-photographed to create constructed environments. Through this iterative process, Foster examines the tension between documentation and invention, and the ways photography can transform from a record into a physical and symbolic object.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and has been featured in publications including Lenscratch, Create Magazine, Conveyor, and the book Constructed: The Contemporary History of the Constructed Image in Photography Since 1990. Foster is the recipient of the LensCulture Critics’ Choice Award and has held teaching positions at Dartmouth College, Moore College of Art and Design, and the former University of the Arts, where she received the President’s Distinguished Teaching Award. Her practice is informed by research into geology, folklore, and landscape transformation.
Amie Potsic
Amie Potsic is an internationally exhibited photographer and installation artist whose work explores cultural, personal, and natural phenomena through immersive, research-based projects. Her work has been exhibited extensively in the U.S. and abroad, including at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Colombia; The Art Park in Rhodes, Greece; The Royal College of London; the Maguire Art Museum, and The Delaware Contemporary where she was awarded Best in Show in Experimental Photography Today. Potsic earned an MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and BAs in Photojournalism and English Literature from Indiana University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. She has held faculty appointments at the University of California at Berkeley, Ohlone College, and the San Francisco Art Institute and been an artist in residence at Foundation House. Her monograph Seeker: An Extraordinary Photographic Odyssey in the Holy Lands was presented at the AIPAD Art Fair New York in 2025 and 2026. She is host of the Art is the Answer Podcast and her work has been featured in The Philadelphia Inquirer and The San Francisco Chronicle and on 6abc television and National Public Radio (NPR).
Tony Belver
Tony Bellaver is a Bay Area photographer and mixed media artist specializing in experimental photographic techniques. Between 1985 and 1986, Bellaver served as a darkroom assistant at the Ansel Adams workshops in Yosemite for Charles Crammer who taught Cibachrome printing and dye transfer printing, before receiving his undergraduate degree at San Jose State University, and graduate degree at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI). While in graduate school, Bellaver expanded his vision of art, focusing on work that incorporated photographic elements using alternative photographic processes.
Since graduating from SFAI, his artwork has been exhibited at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, DeYoung Museum of San Francisco, and he has had work shown by Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Los Angeles; Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley; and Steffany Martz gallery, Chelsea. He and his partner Mary live and make their art in Oakland also working collaboratively as Quite Contrary Press with their border collie Luna.