Ceding Ground | Bremner Benedict, Jason Lindsey and Steve Goldband & Ellen Konar – Artist Talk

Join us for an online discussion with four artists engaged with the landscape and climate that surrounds us, Bremner Benedict, Jason Lindsey, Steve Goldband & Ellen Konar to talk about their creativity under the banner of the exhibition Ceding Ground.

Join us in the Griffin Zoom Room – October 10, 2023 7pm Eastern / 4pm Pacific

This event is FREE to Griffin Museum members. $10 for Non-Members. Interested in Membership and its benefits? See more about what the Griffin offers here.

Bremner Benedict – Hidden Waters

Benedict’s projects center on the role that landscape plays in the human experience – on unseen,  ordinary places –  what they reveal about our attitudes and relationship to the natural world and the potential consequences of what we choose to not to value. Her focus for the last six years has been on drought  climate change and overuse of water in the arid landscapes in North America.

Benedict’s images are at Fidelity Art Boston; Center for Photography, Tucson; Florida Museum of Photographic Arts; New Mexico Museum of Art; Decordova Museum of Art and Sculpture; Harvard’s Fogg Museum; and George Eastman Museum. Solo exhibitions include Florida Museum of Photographic Arts; Griffin Museum of Photography at Stoneham; Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX; and Philadelphia Print Center. Hidden Waters archive resides in the Museum of Art & Environment, Reno Nevada; Benedict is a member of Blue Earth Alliance and the Long Now.

Jason Lindsey – Cracks in the Ice

Jason Lindsey is a Midwest-based photographer and filmmaker working to interpret science and the human impacts and relationship to the natural world. Lindsey considers himself a poetic activist using his art to drive social change.

Lindsey received his BA in Fine Art from Illinois State University. Lindsey has a 20-year career in advertising and editorial photography with a continued focus on Fine Art Photography. Photo assignments have taken him from the jungles of the Amazon, the Glaciers of Iceland, the Wilds of Alaska, and the waters of Belize. Lindsey is currently the Artist in Residence at Prairie Rivers Network and has photographs in a United Nations Climate Change and The Climate Museum exhibit in New York City and another United Nations exhibit in Paris.

He has been featured in PDN, Communication Arts, and Archive Magazine and was named one of the top 200 Advertising Photographers Worldwide in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. Lindsey’s book “Windy City Wild: Chicago’s Natural Wonders” was published by Chicago Review Press.

Steve Goldband & Ellen Konar – Cut Short

“Trees are known for their sturdy trunks and far reaching limbs. So much so, trees are often used as the veritable symbol of strength, kinship and even life itself.  Yet, even the hardiest trees are often felled by man or disease, pushed to the wayside and ultimately forgotten.   This photographic series reveals the faces of wooded life cut short. Raggedly severed cross sections pose as portraits of once majestic tree forms.  The cross sections expose the anatomy, and in so doing, the passage of time and clues to conditions throughout their lifetime.”

Ellen and Steve are life partners and collaborators in fine art photography. Their co-productions are often strong geometries in muted tones, evidencing Steve’s eye for geometry and light, elevated by Ellen’s interest in memory, meaning, and color. The translucency and mystery of their images are heightened by their embrace of the imperfection-laden beauty of Japanese Kozo papers and the infusion of encaustic wax. The resultant images quietly draw the viewer into the complex and tension-filled interactions between humans and the natural world.
Their images have appeared at galleries and museums such as the Center for Photographic Arts, Carmel, The Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston, Soho Photo Gallery, NYC, Corden|Potts Gallery, SF, Berkeley Art Center, Gray Loft Gallery, Oakland, Awagami Museum, Tokyo, Lenswork Magazine, and The Forward. Awards include selection as a Critical Mass Finalist in 2020 and semi-finalist in the Awagami International Mini Print Exhibition. Steve and Ellen received PhD’s in Psychology and were contributors to the emergence of the digital age during their work at tech giants including Apple, IBM, Intel, and Google.