DEAR ERIN HART,
JESSAMYN LOVELL
September 3 - October 18, 2014
Opening Reception: September 4, 2014, 6-8 PM
Artist Talk with Renny Pritikin: September 6, 2014, 2-4 PM

PRESS
Dear Erin Hart, Shotgun Review, Art Practical, Sept 25, 2014
How One Artist Turned the Tables on Her Identity Thief, credit.com, Oct 10, 2014
Jessamyn Lovell builds gallery show out of her ID theft, sfgate.com, Oct 14, 2014

Hi Chuck, You will never even believe this but remember when our stuff got stolen from SF Camerawork back in Oct 2009? Well, turns out my ID has been used repeatedly by a woman in San Francisco to run a small drug operation, get sited for various petty crimes, rent cars and get massive amounts of parking tickets, all in my name. I have been issued a summons to actually appear in court in Oakland. I could not make this shit up, seriously. I am starting to wondering if I should write a book. 
(From an email dated April 11, 2011)

SF Camerawork is proud to present Dear Erin Hart,, an exhibition and publication by artist Jessamyn Lovell on view from September 3 - October 18, 2014. Dear Erin Hart, is the artist's response to being the victim of identity theft. In an act of retribution, Lovell pursued a woman who was using her stolen identity and made art of her process. Using a camera and occupying the varied roles of victim, stalker, investigator, artist, spy, and vigilante, Lovell offers a body of work that touches on contemporary concerns of surveillance and selfhood within the information age. For an artist whose previous work engaged questions of identity, Dear Erin Hart, represents Lovell's continued examination of the self as it relates to a "data-self" that exists amidst the chaotic unfolding of real life. 

Dear Erin Hart, deploys photographs, video, and printed documentation to tell the story of a crime and two women who exist on either side of the bundle of data that defines them. Through her pursuit of Erin Hart, Lovell maps an understanding of both her own and Hart's identity and the course of events that caused their lives to become entwined. The photographs are stylistically anxious, often blurred and askew, suggesting an unsettled haste on the part of both the photographer and her subject. Oblique discoveries and glimpses of evidence seem to circle a host of underlying questions without establishing a core understanding of the perpetrator, the victim, or the implied witness. Despite our preoccupation with the invasive reach of surveillance and information technology, Dear Erin Hart, suggests that human identity -- real, digital, or otherwise -- remains an elusive target.

This exhibition is funded by The San Francisco Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.