Bio
Tema Stauffer is a photographer and professor whose work examines the social, economic, and psychological landscape of American spaces. Her work has been exhibited at Sasha Wolf, Daniel Cooney Fine Art, and Jen Bekman galleries in New York, as well as galleries and institutions nationally and internationally including a survey of Contemporary U.S. Photography at the Houston Fotofest 2010 Biennial. She taught at Concordia University in Montreal from 2014 - 2017 and has previously taught at Ramapo College, College of Staten Island, School at ICP, William Paterson University, and Toxico Cultura in Mexico City. She was awarded an AOL 25 for 25 Grant for innovation in the arts in 2010 for her combined work as an artist and as a curator and writer for Culturehall. She has contributed articles to PDNedu, American Photo Magazine, and other publications.
She is the recipient of the 2012 Women in Photography – LTI/Lightside Individual Project Grant and a 2014 CCNY Darkroom Residency for her documentary portrait series, Paterson, depicting residents of Paterson, New Jersey during the years following the economic crisis in 2008. One of these portraits was a finalist for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2013 and was included in the competition exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery from 2013-14. The same portrait received third prize in The Photo Review Competition 2012. Paterson was presented in solo exhibitions at Baxter Street CCNY Gallery and Sasha Wolf Gallery in 2015.
She has participated in seven group shows at Jen Bekman Gallery and her solo show, American Stills, opened in October 2004. Fifteen images from this body of work were selected by the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago for the Midwest Photographers Project. She exhibited her portrait series, The Ballad of Sad Young Men, along with work by Francesca Romeo at Daniel Cooney Fine Art Gallery in 2009. Her work also has been exhibited at the LiShui Photography Festival and the LiShui Museum of Photography, Chicago Cultural Center, Terra Museum of American Art, Musee Departmental d’ Art Contemporain de Rouchechourt, Hyde Park Art Center, Detroit Contemporary, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, 3rd Ward Brooklyn, Tyler School of Art, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of the Arts Gallery 1401, Pascal Gallery, Adrian College Gallery, Central Lakes College Gallery, Joymore Gallery, Butcher Shop Gallery, Gallery 400, Icebox Gallery, Heaven Gallery, David Allen Gallery, Jon Oulman Gallery, Lyceum Theatre Gallery, Dean Jenson Gallery, Moti Hasson Gallery, Randall Scott Gallery, Flanders Gallery, Lilian Rodriguez Gallery and Montreal's Hall of Honor at City Hall.
Publications
Tema Stauffer’s photographs have been published in The New York Times, The New Statesman, The Chicago Reader, The City Pages, The Rake Magazine, Lavender Magazine, The Village Voice, and W Magazine. She has contributed to online platforms including Ausgang, Garth Risk Hallberg’s A Field Guide to the North American Family, Humble Arts Foundation’s Group Show, and FlakPhoto’s Making Pictures of People: Recent Perspectives on Photographic Portraiture and Looking at the Land: 21st Century American Views. Her work has been published in Nymphoto Books: Conversation Volume 1 and Fotofest 2010 Contemporary U.S. Photography with a curatorial essay by Aaron Schuman.
