Terri Loewenthal

Terri Loewenthal Biography

Originally from Washington, D.C. and South Florida, Terri Loewenthal received her artistic training at Rice University in Houston, Texas, where she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts. 

Terri Loewenthal is an Oakland-based photographer and artist. As an artist, Loewenthal seeks to turn the photographic discipline on its head and capture not an objective version of the natural world but, rather, a reimagined genre of landscape photography. 

Lowenthal does this by focusing her attention on multiple overlapping vantage points, combined with a distinct use of oversaturated hues. In manipulating the ‘objective’ view, Loewenthal exposes the fallacy of photographic realism and embraces the rich subjectivity and complexity of the natural world and human relationships with the environment that surrounds us. 

Terri Loewenthal’s most recent work combines spectacular landscapes with notions of the psyche to create sublime and expansive images. Her latest series, Psychoscapes, is an exploration of sublime landscapes and psychological awareness. Land and sky are imbued with the potent mythology of Utopian California. These single-exposure, in-camera, images are composed with the use of special optics developed by Loewenthal herself, specifically for this series. 

The resulting images reflect the multiplicity of life and a connection to reality that transcends the factual to embrace human emotion, imagination, and wild, transformative experiences. 

Previous projects include a series entitled Havasu Falls. In her Havasu Falls series, Loewenthal draws upon the history of landscape photography and reimagines the genre under a “psychedelic light” to create images of the world that are both familiar yet wild. 

Lowenthal masterfully compresses vast and expansive spaces into complex and evocative environments to entwine landscape photography with deeper questions pertaining to the psychology and philosophy of human perception. 

Loewenthal’s unique approach has brought her great acclaim across a diverse range of venues including the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, and Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, GA. Loewenthal’s work is also regularly exhibited across public and private collections including the City of San Francisco McEvoy Foundation for the Arts and Fidelity Investments. 

Following her great success, Loewenthal has enjoyed features in notable publications including segments in Aperture, Wired, and Harper’s. Loewenthal is also the founder of her own residency program – The Chetwood – which provides housing for artists visiting the Bay Area. Here, visiting artists can join a community of supportive artists and build all-important peer networks outside of the typical art-making structures. 

Loewenthal’s commitment to the community is indisputable. She is an artist rooted in collaboration and connectivity. Loewenthal frequently collaborates with arts organizations like Creative Growth (Oakland, CA) and individuals in the Bay Area. As an artist, Loewenthal embraces a broad spectrum of the creative arts. 

For Terri Loewenthal, landscape photography is a visual exploration of the relationship that exists between human beings, land, culture, and history. Through her work, Loewenthal expresses the autonomy of the land and petitions her audience to hold a greater reverence for our suffering environment.