November 11, 2008

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Actor and photographer Leonard Nimoy will lecture on his photographic works at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6, as the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Art and Art History's 2009 John Morton Visiting Artist. The lecture, free and open to the public, will take place in UAB's Volker Hall, 1670 University Blvd., Birmingham.

Prior to the lecture, at 5:30 p.m., a reception for the artist will be held in the UAB Visual Arts Gallery, 900 13th St. S. Tickets to the reception are $100. For more information contact the UAB Department of Art and Art History at 205-934-4941.

Nimoy, well known for his role as Mr. Spock on the television/film series "Star Trek," first experienced the magic of making photographic images as a teenager in the early 1940s. The family camera, a bellows Kodak Autographic, is a cherished part of his collection. His darkroom was the family bathroom in their small Boston apartment; his subjects, family and friends. Nimoy studied at UCLA with Robert Heineken in the 1970s.

Nimoy's photographic works include "The Full Body Project," an examination of concepts of beauty and sexuality, "The Shekhina Project," a photographic essay about the feminine essence of God, "The Black & White Project" and classic nude/dance, self portraits, landscapes and hands series. During an artist-in-residence appointment at the American Academy in Rome, Nimoy produced a series based on the Antonio Canova sculpture of Paulina Bonaparte Borghese. Of Nimoy's "Shekhina" images, noted art critic Donald Kuspit wrote, "... Nimoy's fascination with the female body involves an element of temptation as well as transcendence ... One body represents - by reason of the often stark contrast between light and dark, covered and uncovered flesh - what it took Titian two bodies to represent ... what is really unusual about his female figures is that they signify profane and sacred love simultaneously... ."