Shawn Records
Shawn Records
Flaming Energy Ball
July 5 - 28, 2013
Photographer Shawn Records readily admits he has never much cared for professional sports. That changed a few years ago when his two sons became interested in basketball. Taking a cue from their enthusiasm, Records gained a new admiration for the game and became a true fan of the Portland Trail Blazers, his hometown team. He now happily declares that "basketball made my life better." He also found in photography a unique salve for that anxious period when the season is suddenly--and painfully--over.
"Since that time, my kids and I have watched the Blazers make it to the NBA playoffs each and every season only to get beaten in the first round. Each year it's knocked me into a surprising yet truly profound malaise. Flaming Energy Ball can perhaps best be thought of as a self-indulgent therapeutic exercise to dig myself out of this hole each spring. Inspired by and co-authored with my son Sam, whose enthusiasm for the game never wavers, I found a different way to watch the remainder of each season, taking pause during the time-outs and half-time shows to search for consolation in the healing properties of light and the power to stop time...photography as an athletic achievement of sorts."
Shawn Records holds a BA from Boise State University and an MFA from Syracuse University. His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), LightWork, and the Portland Art Museum (PAM) and has been exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at Blue Sky (August 2003) and Castillo/Corralles and group exhibitions at MoCP, PAM, Jen Bekman, the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Gallery at Reed College, and Photo Center Northwest, among others. His work has been published widely, including Vice magazine's annual photo issue, Contact Sheet, Remain in Light, Camerawork, Pause to Begin, DoubleTake, and Adbusters. From the Bottom of a Well, a "poetic and tragically humorous account" of a 2010 Chinese government-sponsored trip, was published by A-Jump books. Based in Portland, Oregon, Records also teaches photography and serves as President of the Board of Directors of Photolucida.