Artist Chala Janpraphasaku will be displaying her work at Penn State Wilkes-Barre's Friedman Art Gallery beginning April 17th and running through May 13th. A reception is planned for the evening of April 17th.
Chala was born and raised in Thailand until 1998. After graduating from Hunter College, New York in 2004 with a computer science degree, she came to Scranton, PA, and has worked as a software developer ever since.
Chala was introduced to photography during her teenage years; it was the digital era that inspired her to apply photography as a medium to express herself. She studied at the International Center of Photography for a well-grounded understanding of digital photography techniques and lighting. After attending a workshop on levitation photography in 2011, Chala focused on story-telling while creating her images, as well as the visual dynamic essence that invokes a viewer's perception.
"My love of photography is for its endless ability to capture and document the beauty, timelessness and living reality of every existence in our world," explains Chala. "I take inspiration from my surroundings and then inject the factors of impossibility into it. I often apply multiplicity, levitation and supernatural transformation to the subjects in my images."
Chala's selected images were exhibited in the Northeastern Biennial 2013 exhibition, where she was awarded first place in the photography category. She was then selected to present a one-person exhibition in October 2014 at Mahady Gallery at Marywood University. Her work also brought her recognition with the F. Lammot Belin 2014 Emerging Artist Award.
Chala Janpraphasakul's artwork will be on display during regular gallery hours: Monday 12pm-4pm, Tuesday 12:15pm-4:15pm, Wednesday 12pm-4pm, Thursday 12:15pm-4:15pm, and Friday 12pm- 3pm; hours are subject to change.