On Tuesday April 20th, we will hold our eighth  competition for the 2009/10 club year with Victoria Restrepo as our judge.  There is no specific theme for the April Competition. 

Victoria Restrepo was born in Colombia, where she grew up surrounded by her grandfather and great grandfather's photographs. They were some of the earliest photographers in South America and the Caribbean. The smell of the photographic chemicals, and the magical darkness of her family lab, marked her life forever. 

She studied fine art in Colombia, and photography at The New England School of Photography, in Boston. She has worked as a Commercial Photographer and as a photography teacher.

As a photographer she worked in her darkroom for years manipulating films, chemicals, and papers, and using new digital techniques to break through the accurate and "realistic" representation of reality given to us by traditional photography.  At the same time, with her paintings, she was trying to get as close to the real world, as she could. Mixing both medias has given her an opportunity to explore a new world where fantasy and reality meet each other. 

Her photographs are poised between reality and illusion, and through them she faces the same challenges that artists have been facing for centuries: how to get a perfect balance between color and transparency, light and shadow, texture and delicacy, and also how to express a profound desire to attract and deceive the viewer.

A few years ago she moved to the Washington DC area, where she is working on her new series of imaginary still lifes and landscapes, mixing photography, painting, and digital art.

Please join our judge, Victoria Restrepo for our pre-competition dinner at Chili's at 5:45 on Tuesday, April 20th. Please RSVP to Gerry at gerry.abbott@nospam!#*&^#)type address - don't copy spam protection(*@.@nospamcox.net . Hope to see you there.

Gerry Abbott

Co-VP Competition

gerry.abbott@nospam!#*&^#)type address - don't copy spam protection(*@.@nospamcox.net

703-967-9677 

Brian Payne 

Co-VP Competition

BPayne45@nospam!#*&^#)type address - don't copy spam protection(*@.@nospamyahoo.com 

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Chili's Bar and Grille

8051 Leesburg Pike

Vienna, VA

703-734-9512

From I-495/CAPITAL BELTWAY

1: Take the VA-7 W/LEESBURG PIKE exit number 47B-A toward TYSONS CORNER

2: Merge onto LEESBURG PIKE/VA-7 W toward TYSONS CORNER and move to left lane 

   You will see Chili's almost immediately on the left. 

3: Take a left at the first light "Fashion Square" (Tiffany's will be on the left and Tyson's

   Corner Shopping Center will be on the right) and an immediate left onto service road in

   front of Tiffany's, take your first right into Chili's parking lot.