A MEASURE OF LIGHT by Lise King
On Exhibit June 11 - June 23
Artist Reception: Friday, June 14 from 5 - 7 PM
A Measure of Light
Locally-based artist Lise Balk King will have an exhibition of her photographic and cinematographic work, A Measure of Light, at The Provincetown Commons, opening June 14, 5-7 pm, on display through Sunday, June 23.
The exhibition's signature photograph of Apsáalooke young women in regalia at Obama 2008 campaign rally, Crow Reservation, MT has been acquired for a 6' x 6' display in the galleries at the Obama Presidential Museum, opening Chicago, 2025. A Measure of Light offers glimpses into a decades-long journey – first as a photographer, and then as a filmmaker and cinematographer – from the Outer Cape to a life in Indian Country and back again. “While distant and disparate in many ways, my two places of home are akin in energy, exposed to the vicissitudes of storm and sun, with wide open vistas and wild creatures of all kinds. They are meccas of spiritual seeking and places for outsiders, with deep contrasts of darkness and light.”
“I’ve always been drawn to the magic of the camera. My early influences were stacks of fashion magazines – I studied Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and the like – and then one summer in Provincetown I was introduced to Interview Magazine and I fell in love with all of it – the stunning medium, of course, but also the magic of creating worlds to inhabit, of weaving exciting imagery and storytelling.”
Soliloquy, Pine Ridge, South Dakota
Mitchelene Bigman, Native American Women Warriors Color Guard, The White House Tribal Nations Summit, Washington, DC, 2012
Lise lived in Provincetown, NYC, and Los Angeles and worked in film and television before decamping to South Dakota. “My sense of self and purpose in the world and connection to place were forever altered by my life in Indian Country; first as a visitor, and then as a member of the community with my Sicangu Lakota (now former) partner and as mom to our two children, Shiala, now 31, and Nathan, 23. In 2001, we founded and began publishing The Native Voice, which became the largest independent Native newspaper in the nation 2001-2008. Many of the editorial photographs in A Measure of Light are from my work for the newspaper, the highlight of which was serving as traveling press on the Obama 2008 presidential campaign.” The Native Voice was a colorful broadsheet printed on quality paper, “a powwow on the page,” was inspired by The Village Voice and Interview Magazine, and regularly blended the two worlds, featuring historical photos and traditional storytelling along with news and interviews.
Lise Balk King is an award-winning photographer, publisher, writer, and filmmaker. Her work has been exhibited in a juried exhibition at PAAM, at the Fine Arts Work Center, Harvard University, and ICA Boston, and is in the permanent collections of the Obama Presidential Museum, Smithsonian NMAI, Pilgrim Hall Museum, Mystic Seaport Museum, and the Provincetown Pilgrim Monument & Museum.
Washed, Herring Cove, Provincetown (part of a 20-piece grid of photos measuring a total of 7' tall x 12' wide)
Viggo Mortensen, press junket for Hidalgo, Rapid City, SD
Emmy® Award-nominated for Entangled (GBH), and Cinema Eye Honor-nominated for Heroin Cape Cod, USA (HBO), she also serves as an adjunct professor in film and consultant in public policy and media strategy. Lise studied documentary film at Harvard, earned a Master's in Public Administration and served as a Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School (2011-14), and holds a BA in History from Mt. Holyoke College. She is a member of the Producers Guild of America and serves as a founding member and secretary, Board of Directors, for the Provincetown Public Art Foundation.
Sand Angel, Provincetown