OCTOBER 2025
FIRST FRIDAY OPENING: October 3, 5-8 pm
EXHIBITION ON VIEW: Saturday, October 4 - Friday, October 31
GALLERY HOURS: Thursday-Sunday, 1-4 pm
To purchase art from our current exhibition, please visit our online shop
CENTER AND NORTH GALLERIES
Rarefied Light | Alaska Photographic Center
Bill Heubner, Matanuska Glacier silt and Water 3622, Pigment ink on archival rag paper, 18 x 24 inches
The Rarefied Light 2025 exhibition kicks off with an opening reception at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage on October 3rd, 5 to 8pm. The Anchorage exhibit includes work by juror Stephanie Johnson showing concurrently.
The Alaska Photographic Center (APC) is a statewide organization formed in 1983, with a mission to promote fine art photography in Alaska. Each year APC seeks out a nationally recognized artist to jury the Rarefied Light show and present a public lecture and workshop. Rarefied Light is Alaska’s largest annual fine art photography exhibition. This year we received 434 entries by 68 Alaska artists.
Guest juror Stephanie Johnson, Iowa, selected 48 photographs by 28 artists for inclusion in this year’s exhibition.
Best of Show is awarded to: Bill Heubner, Anchorage “Matanuska Glacier silt and Water 3622”
In addition, Stephanie chose 5 pieces for the Honorable Mention Award.
Julie Jessen, Eagle River, “Flash of Sunlight”
Trevor Jones, Anchorage, “Leap”
Javid Kamali, Anchorage, “No Sight, No Mind”
Harry Walker, Anchorage, “Doors, Fort Selkirk Yukon Territory”
Dennis Walworth, Anchorage, “Ice Texture”
Following the Anchorage exhibit, which ends October 31, the exhibit will travel to Well Street Art Co in Fairbanks, showing January 2 to February 2, 2026 with an opening reception January 2, 5 to 7pm. The show will exhibit at Kenai Peninsula College, February 12 to March 5, with an closing reception March 5, 4:30 to 6pm. It will travel to Matsu College Gallery, Palmer, March 20 to April 15, with an opening reception March 20, 4 to 6pm. The final show is in Valdez, at the Valdez Museum and Historical Archive, June 17 to September 8.
Rarefied Light is funded in part by a grant from the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
SOUTH GALLERY
The Landscape of Imagination | Stephanie Johnson
Stephanie Johnson, Winter Wonderland, Digital Photographic Print, Premium Archival Ink on Fujicolor Crystal Archive Luster Paper, 12 x 18 inches
The prints seen here as part of the Rarefied Light 2025 exhibition represent a personal vision to push my imagery beyond any specific or literal visual references—to see the unseen energy and essence of a place, a moment, a subject, or a location, to create artistic work that characterizes a fuller and more complete expression of the experience. Using a variety of in-camera, analog, and creative processing techniques, my images tap into the landscape of my own imagination, where all expressions are unique to my inner creative spirit and cannot be replicated.
Learn about Stephanie's work and see more images at her website: stephjohnphoto.com
IGCA ANNEX
[UN]STUCK | ADDIE STUDEBAKER
[UN]STUCK : an interactive installation for all ages. You are invited to the IGCA annex to enjoy and co-create an immersive community space & sensorial experience of line, color, texture. Over the next two months visitors will fill two annex walls with tape: a ubiquitous material stuck in the gray area of function vs. form. Is it THE most toss-able tool of our times, here to facilitate packaging, transporting, and creating with other mediums…or is it the medium itself?
Come get stuck/unstuck/restuck; zone out in creative flow, sensorial exploration, and a flood of sunlit color. Watch the space evolve through early October, as the light changes with the season and the white walls gradually fill with color and pattern.
A variety of painters, masking, and washi tapes, and tools, are at your disposal during Annex open hours (TBA) and during First Fridays, with tape donations highly encouraged! Kid-friendly - lots of low-lying wall space.
Addie Studebaker, the artist behind [UN]STUCK, lives and works in the Mat-Su valley and will be on-hand this First Friday to introduce the installation.