Michael Borek (Bethesda, MD) has taken several photography classes at the NorthernVirginia Community College, Sterling, VA and Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, but he is mostly a self-taught photographer. In 2006, Borek became a member of the Multiple Exposures Gallery at the Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, VA. In 2008, he had a solo exhibition at the Czech Embassy in Washington, DC, and, in 2009, he was a featured artist at the Rayko Gallery, San Francisco, CA. During the last three years, his photographs of an abandoned lace factory in Scranton, PA, were selected for juried shows by curators from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, and HirshhornMuseum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC. He received second prize in the fine art category of the international competition of FotoWeekDC, Washington, D.C. In 2011, a solo exhibition of his work featuring was ranked as one of the ten best photography exhibitions in Washington, D.C., by photography critic Louis Jacobson. In 2012, the Maryland State Arts Council awarded Borek an Individual Artist Award and Grant. In April 2013, Borek had a retrospective exhibition at the US Embassy, Prague, Czech Republic. www.michaelborek.com
