About

Biography

b. 1977, Lancaster, PA

Tim Roda’s art career began at Pennsylvania State University, graduating in 2002 with a BFA. He received his MFA in 2004 from the University of Washington, Seattle. There his work developed a language that casually travels within arenas of installation, photography, and performance. The props or devices he includes in the images are made of paper, wood, tape, and clay, often used for their disposable or re-usable nature. He uses photography, not for the love of the technical aspects of the medium, but because of its properties, both abstract and physical, which best depict his vision of life and art.

Roda is represented by the Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle, WA; Gasser Grunert in New York, NY; Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York, NY; Galerie Michael Janssen in Berlin, Germany; Nasim Weiler Contemporary in Hamburg, Germany; and the Angell Gallery in Toronto, Canada. In 2008, he was awarded a Fulbright Award to study photography in Italy. He was also awarded a Kennedy Artist in Residence Award at the University of South Florida during the spring of 2012.

His work is in the following public collections; Bard College Museum, Hessel Foundation (New York, NY); The Rose Museum, Brandeis University (Waltham, MA); Seattle Art Museum and the Henry Art Museum (Seattle, WA); Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX); Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, IL); Essl Museum, (Klosterneuburg Austria); and the Centro Cultural Andratx (Mallorca). Roda has taught art for the Brooklyn Arts Center, New York University, Purchase College (SUNY), Hofstra University, University of Washington & Pennsylvania College of Art and Design.

Artist Statement

I started using photography because of its properties, both abstract and physical. It is the only medium I can use to best depict my vision of life, art and time.

Although the final product is a photograph, the work casually travels within arenas of installation, photography, film and performance. A camera is used to record one moment in time that balances between childhood memories and constructed commentaries, yet is a documentation of “real” events for my wife, Allison, and children. While setting up the photograph, I compel the viewer to consider the different actor’s vantage points within the scene, physically and psychologically. In this way, I ask the viewer to participate by connecting their own personal history to the work, which I have found either repels the viewer or draws them in.

Every scene that has been created was first envisioned in my mind and then played out by my family. Although we are the immediate subjects, the work is filled with metaphorical reverberations of my family history and my memories of childhood. The props or devices I include in the installation–photocopies, wood, tape and unfired clay–are important to my work because they are all materials that are impermanent and contrast historical works.

My sons’ ever-present, central role in the work serves as an identifiable entry point for the audience. Allison’s role is to photograph the work, though she occasionally appears in the images. Over time, we have developed an unspoken language intuiting my vision of art.

Although the overall quality of the print comes across as visceral, the “content” of the image has always been the most important quality of the photograph. Overall, the photographs capture moments of ambiguity so that the work can be understood in several layers. I strive to produce a sensation that makes people both familiar and uneasy about the incongruence of life’s experiences.

Technically, I could print what most photographers would consider to be a perfect picture, but I would consider that to weaken my personal vision. Instead of using filters, flashy tricks or the theory of gray scale to enhance or alter the image, I choose instead to document the actual moment that occurred when the camera shutter closed. I have decided that it is more important for me to be myself and approach techniques and materials the way I do rather than jeopardize the integrity of my art by conforming to existing standards.”

— Tim Roda

Permanent Collections

Solo Exhibitions

2008

Publications

Select Group Shows

Residencies + Education