Elle Schorr

I’ve been exploring the world through a camera throughout my adult life, and have always been excited by contemporary art, architecture and the power of photography. After pursuing a career in clinical social work, I was able to devote more time to photography, taking a variety of technical and critique classes and workshops. My urban multiple perspective / single exposure photography has been included in many exhibitions throughout South Florida.

I’ve also become known also as a passionate organizer and promoter of art and artists through the founding and organizing of Art Salons at the Armory Art Center, beginning in 2012. They are presentations by influential South Florida artists, followed by in-depth discussions. I’ve curated three biennial exhibitions of these artists at the Armory, as well as co-curating “Opposing Futures” at the Projects in FATVillage in Fort Lauderdale in 2017, and then curating “Ripped From The Headlines” there in 2019.

My photographs are primarily of urban life, both north and south, where I seek to convey the energy of the city by looking in store windows, finding complex stories of time and place, people and architecture, hopes and dreams. Like many other women, I also look in store windows to check out the latest fashions, which are designed to appeal to our inner fantasies of how we wish we were: young, slim, hip, confident, daring, creative, successful, glamourous. The mannequins are stand-ins for us, looking in, but the glass also reflects the world outside. I’ve learned to look at both simultaneously, composing photographs in which inner and outer worlds collide, overlap and interfere, based on shadow and light, time of day, the look and feel of a particular part of the city. These chance convergences can sometimes defy logic and enter the realm of magic and mystery.

I’m a city person. City life, art and architecture remain powerful parts of my life. I moved to Florida in 2000 and returned to photography, going back to New York when I can. Miami is another magnet, where the bright colors, palm trees, murals and Art Deco buildings create a world of new discoveries.

These photographs were included in 2009 and 2013 in the “Annual All Florida Exhibition” / Boca Raton Museum, the 2015 Art and Culture Center / Hollywood Florida Biennial, Palm Beach County Cultural Council Biennial 2015, the Cornell Art Museum in Delray Beach in 2017. My collaborative installations were shown at the Projects in FATVillage, and “Outside the Box” at Whitespace in West Palm Beach.