We are pleased to present the work of our inaugural class of Atelier 2 students. Instructor Traer Scott led the class through a year of portfolio development, critique and conversations with professional mentors, book designers, gallerists and editors.
We present the work of Tony Attardo, Judith Donath, Dena Eber, Tira Khan, Kay McCabe, Victor Rosansky, Gordon Saperia, and Li Shen.
Dena Eber: Echoes From the Land
When I moved onto new property in May of 2023, I encountered native ancient energy that at times reflected war and greed but also revealed spirituality and love. The only other time I experienced this was in Israel, the land of my heritage. When I started this artwork, I sought to learn from the energies encrusted in the land; where I live as an inhabitant, my country as an American, and Israel as a Jew. My larger project has each of these places as a part (where I live, my country, Israel), plus an epilogue with reflections for peace. Included are samples from each part.
As the events in southern Israel and Gaza on October 7th, 2023 unfolded, my work took on new meaning, and I searched for parallels in time, at least 2000 to 3000 years in each place, to better understand human energy, behaviors, and their belief in God. I began to think about my place in time, reflecting on whose land it is anyway. Even though I hold the deed to the land where I live, in my heart I know that I don’t own it. My project is about uncovering the human conflict between wanting a place to call home that expresses one’s roots, and a perceived ownership of land.
My lens reveals small truths that lie in front of me, that a greater understanding of the past embedded in the land is entwined to ultimate peace. Each time I click the shutter, connect to the land, and converse with the spirits of the past, I am committing a political act. As in prayer, I give thanks and ask forgiveness at once.
Judith Donath: Aesthetic Selection
Aesthetic Selection is a fine art series of layered flower images, each composition designed to interpose shape and texture, creating a shifting portrait of floral form and botanical detail.
To make these images, I start by photographing living flowers outdoors in natural light. I combine the chosen photographs as full frames, selectively blending the layers using a spatial-frequency-based process.
Every spring, after the long colorless New England winter, I am entranced by the emergence of green shoots, and find the successive waves of blossoms to be photographically irresistible. This attraction is not surprising, for flowers have evolved to be enticingly beautiful. Rooted in place, plants must lure others to assist their reproductive process, to carry pollen from the stamens of one flower to the pistil of another. The beauty and variety of floral forms is the evolutionary result of the competition to attract various pollinators—insects, birds, and now humans, too—with wildly differing sensory preferences and anatomical abilities.
I am far from alone in finding flowers to be an fascinating subject for art: does the world need another picture of a rose or tulip? Yet this familiarity can make us blind to really looking at them; we often simply recognize them, without really noticing the fantastic structure and detail of even the most common place blossom. My goal with this project is to create images that entice people to look afresh at these remarkable botanical solutions to the dual goals of pollinator attraction and sexual reproduction.
Kay McCabe: Inheritance
Inheritance is a photographic memoir that ruminates on family, culture and our relationship to the things we keep.
We all have stuff that has been given to us from our ancestors. The question is, what do you with it all? Do you use it, store it, give it away? What began as an exercise in downsizing quickly became a reflection on my family’s ethos. As I rummaged, I heard lessons from my parents and realized that each object had a story to tell. Creative, industrious and loving, my family was also bound by an oppressive social code. Some items I cherish and others are a burden to save, yet tossing them feels as if I am abandoning my past.
I have found myself in a rush of memories, some crystal clear and some murky with time. The old green chair that belonged to my father as a boy, too small and too low to be practical, still sits proudly right by the woodstove. Broken sewing machines, used by my mother to dress her five children gather dust in the closet. Her paintings, his ruby red wine glasses, my grandfather’s ornate dishes from a lost generation, wedding photos, baby photos, outdated anatomical drawings and history books- the list of things goes on and on. Each object tells a story and connects the past to the present.
My children are not going to want these heirlooms, yet purging is more difficult than I thought. Like all good memoirs, I hope this reflection resonates.
Li Shen: Into the Unknown
I believe that everyone carries an inner world—a personal, illogical gallery of subliminal life, veiled in dreams, shaped by experience, yet composed of more than memory. Most of the time, this world remains inaccessible, buried beneath waking consciousness. Perhaps it is what psychologists call the unconscious.
In my conscious mind, I sense the world teetering toward an uncertain future. Climate change, authoritarianism, and other looming crises threaten to unravel what once felt stable. My immediate response is to cling to normalcy, to suppress dread and despair. Yet, these anxieties continue to be processed beneath the surface, emerging in fleeting ways—through dreams, word associations, and slips of the tongue.
Lately, my artistic practice begins with collecting objects—not for their material value, but for their beauty, quirkiness, or quiet insistence. The images in this series are in-camera compositions of these found objects, arranged as small dioramas atop my bedroom dresser rather than assembled digitally. This hands-on approach is integral to my practice, – tactile, real-world constructions giving rise to images that depart from reality.
While I approach each arrangement with intention, often sketching ideas beforehand, the images themselves arise from a deeper place. Certain objects seem to demand inclusion, scratching at the surface of my inner world, insisting on their role within a scene. The resulting photographs feel dreamlike and irrational—fragments of the subconscious made visible. I do not doubt that they are oblique reflections of my suppressed fears, a way for my mind to process what I work so hard to ignore.
For now, my conscious gaze remains averted from the uncertainty ahead, but through these images, the unconscious speaks.
Victor Rosansky:
I create photographs that function like visual symphonies—images that don’t just capture moments but unfold like music over time. By translating rhythmic structures into visual form, I guide the viewer’s gaze much like a composer leads a listener through sound. Whether it’s the order of urban patterns or the vitality of natural chaos, rhythm shapes the emotional tone of my work. My goal is to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary; images that are not just seen but felt.
Even before I press the shutter, I find myself “listening” to a scene—tuning in to its tempo, its dynamics, its emotional tone. Whether it’s the orderly cadence of urban architecture or the unpredictable pulse of nature, each image is crafted to evoke specific emotional responses.
This cross-disciplinary perspective not only sharpens my visual intuition but also invites collaboration—where photographers and musicians can meet in shared creative space, building layered, immersive works that are full of metaphors. For me, rhythm is the connective tissue between image and feeling, sight and sound, stillness and movement—and it is through this rhythm that I find the heartbeat of my art.
Gordon Saperia: Threshold of a Dream
Threshold of a Dream is a series of nonrepresentational landscape images whose origins are deeply rooted in my desire to hold the joyful memory of a specific time and a place. These recollections are guided by imagery seen in my pre-dream state – a phenomenon referred to by scientists as “hypnagogia”. Drifting towards sleep, I often see dimly lit and vaguely familiar landscapes. These visions transform in content and in feel–sometimes quickly and sometimes more slowly. Upon awakening, I have unusually clear memories of them.
The digitally composited images in Threshold of a Dream are complex fusions of elements from my photographs of worldwide landscapes. The process involves replacing one section after another until the entire frame feels both mysterious and congruous. The final form, which can take hours of digital play, blurs the line between photography and painting.
I have walked, photographed, and dreamt in these fantastic places. My hope is that the viewer will take a moment to pause and construct their own story.
Web-based, generative artificial intelligence (AI) was not used to create these images.
Tony Attardo: A Portrait of Place
The American novelist John Steinbeck, reminds us, “You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself”.1 These words run deep, and bring me back to a very young age when the conversation at our family dinner table wasn’t about food, it was about respect; treating people with dignity and respect no matter what their station in life, what they looked like, where they came from, or where they lived. Today, at 71 years old, this powerful lesson is still the driving force of my photography.
In this body of work, I have created portraits of people’s surroundings and lives in the lesser known small rural and urban places in my home state of New Hampshire. The motivation behind this, and all my work, is to inform, inspire, and to connect cultures and lives that help start conversations about dignity and respect.
These images, a combination of digital monochrome and black and white film, focus on the interplay of light and shadow and detail. They allow the viewer to concentrate on the subjects’ expressions and environment while enhancing an emotional connection.
In each photograph, there are signs of a calm, steady human presence-each with their own character. The buildings serve as a tangible link to the past, offering us a sense of place and continuity, a story of quiet resolve – i.e. a century old granite church, the active brick factory buildings, and a small town hall on a country road. Creating black and white images help transcend time,create emotional depth, and bring people directly into the present.
All of these photographs extend the viewer an invitation into the spaces where one can easily enter and perhaps contemplate who might live here, feel their presence, and imagine their voices. Each photograph, complete with its beauty and complexity, becomes a single thread in a much larger story.
1 From a recent public exhibit, Portland Museum of Art 2023
