Wavelength: Patrice Helmar

Patrice Aphrodite Helmar is an artist and independent curator from Juneau, Alaska. She worked in her father’s small-town camera shop and darkroom growing up and continues to work in photography. Helmar currently lives and works in Ridgewood, Queens. Helmar has shown widely, including at the Jewish Museum, Ortega Y Gasset Projects, Z-Ranch LA, Gaa Gallery, Houston Center of Photography, and the National Museum of Iceland. Helmar has taught at Columbia University, Rutgers, and was a public school teacher in Alaska. Helmar is currently faculty at Fordham University and a Visiting Professor at the Pratt Institute. She is the curator of the Marble Hill Camera Club and the Backyard Biennial. Helmar was a nominee for the Rema Hort Mann and Henri Cartier-Bresson Prize, and a recipient of a Rasmuson Foundation Fellowship and the Pratt Faculty Fund. She earned her MAT in Secondary Education from the University of Alaska Southeast in 2013 and graduated from Columbia University in 2015 with an MFA in Visual Arts. Helmar has been a visiting artist and critic at Harvard University, Hampshire College, Columbia University, SUNY New Paltz, University of Arkansas, Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar, and other institutions. Helmar’s work has been featured in Artforum, The New York Review of Books, Gayletter, The Reservoir Quarterly, The Boston Art Review, Art F City, VICE, and The Huffington Post.