Winchester

Ceding Ground

Posted on July 27, 2023

Ceding Ground is a view of our changing climate through the eyes of six photographers, all grasping with the question of loss of habitat, groundwater and climate change. Simon Norfolk’s two series, When I am laid in Earth and Shroud focus on retreating ice in Africa and Europe. Jason Lindsey’s Cracks in the Ice is a metaphorical and scientific look at glaciation. Camille Seaman’s Melting Away exposes us to habitat loss for the penguins of Antartica. Hidden Waters is Bremner Benedict’s look at the water crisis in the Western United States. Ellen Konar & Steve Goldband expose us to climate change through the study of tree rings in Cut Short. Outside the museum we have Dawn Watson’s Alchemy, an abstract look at the elements that surround us and Ville Kansanen’s site specific installations connecting the museum to the surroundings engaging Judkin’s Pond as a partner in his vision to talk about the fragility of aquatic resources.

Simon Norfolk | ***When I am Laid In Earth* *& Shroud***

glacier, cabin and fire — *© Simon Norfolk*

Simon Norfolk is a landscape photographer whose work over twenty years has been themed around a probing and stretching of the meaning of the word ‘battlefield’ in all its forms. As such, he has photographed in some of the world’s worst war-zones and refugee crises, but is equally at home photographing supercomputers used to design military systems or the test-launching of nuclear missiles. Time’s layeredness in the landscape is an ongoing fascination of his.

His work has been widely recognised: he has won The Discovery Prize at Les Rencontres d’Arles in 2005; The Infinity Prize from The International Center of Photography in 2004; and he was winner of the European Publishing Award, 2002. In 2003 he was shortlisted for the Citibank Prize now known as the Deutsche Börse Prize and in 2013 he won the Prix Pictet Commission. He has won multiple World Press Photo and Sony World Photography awards.

He has produced four monographs of his work including ‘Afghanistan: Chronotopia’ (2002) which was published in five languages; ‘For Most Of It I Have No Words’ (1998) about the landscapes of genocide; and ‘Bleed’ (2005) about the war in Bosnia. His most recent is ‘Burke + Norfolk; Photographs from the War in Afghanistan.’ (2011).

He has work held in major collections such as The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, The Getty in Los Angeles as well as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Wilson Centre for Photography and the Sir Elton John Collection. His work has been shown widely and internationally from Brighton to Ulaanbaatar and in 2011 his ‘Burke + Norfolk’ work was one of the first ever photography solo shows at Tate Modern in London.

He has been described by one critic as ‘the leading documentary photographer of our time. Passionate, intelligent and political; there is no one working in photography that has his vision or his clarity.’ He is currently running at a pretty nifty Number 44 on ‘The 55 Best Photographers of all Time. In the History of the World. Ever. Definitely.’

Simon Norfolk’s Shroud was made in collaboration with Klaus Thymann of Project Pressure, “a charity with a mission to visualize climate change.”

Camille Seaman | Melting Away : A Penguins Life

Camille Seaman was born in 1969. She graduated in 1992 from the State University of New York at Purchase, where she studied photography with Jan Groover and John Cohen. Her photographs have been published in National Geographic Magazine, Italian Geo, German GEO, TIME, The New York Times Sunday magazine, Newsweek, Outside, Zeit Wissen, Men’s Journal, Seed, Camera Arts, Issues, PDN, and American Photo among many others, She frequently leads photographic workshops. Her photographs have received many awards including: a National Geographic Award, 2006; and the Critical Mass Top Monograph Award, 2007. She is a TED Senior Fellow, Stanford Knight Fellow as well as a Cinereach Filmmaker in Residence Fellow.

Camille Seaman strongly believes in capturing photographs that articulate that humans are not separate from nature.

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.

Awards include: CENTER Santa Fe- Project Launch Award, Juror’s Award, Karen Haas Juror, Conversations with the Land, Center for Fine Art Photography; Massachusetts Cultural Council Finalist; Critical Mass Top 200, 2019; the FENCE, New England; Legacy Award, Griffin Museum of Photography; two Puffin Foundation Grants; artist residencies: Museum of Northern Arizona, Joshua Tree Highlands Residency, Shoshone Artist Residency; solo exhibitions: Florida Museum of Photography, Griffin Museum of Photography – Stoneham, Hess Gallery, Texas Women’s University, and Philadelphia Print Center.

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.

Amber Crabbe | I Dreamed We Could Stand Still

Exploration of the natural world and my desire to document its dynamism drives my photographic practice and draws me to volcanic and geothermal areas. There I can celebrate places of resilience that continue to reject human manipulation, in spite of the dramatic changes currently being imposed on our climate. Although it’s possible to build a boardwalk across a steaming hot spring or construct a roadway that facilitates access to an active volcanic area, the elements in these places refuse to be constrained. Their stubbornness soothes me and represents small victories in the face of massive global change. My moving photographs exemplify how I escape into these otherworldly places and bear witness to their ultimately unknowable power and beauty.

Amber Crabbe holds a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and received a Bachelor of Science in Art and Design from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2018 she was awarded a position in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Fellows Program and in 2012 she received the Jack and Gertrude Murphy Contemporary Art Award. She has participated in numerous curated and juried exhibitions at venues throughout the U.S., including the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, the Berkeley Art Center, SF Camerawork, SomArts, the Pacific Film Archive, Gallery Route One, Rayko Photo Center, the Smith Anderson North Gallery, the Gray Loft Gallery, and the Whatcom Museum. She lives and works in San Francisco, California.

Ceding Ground | Cut Short

Posted on July 26, 2023

“Let us tell their stories, learn our history and remember the lost possibilities of every life cut short.”

– Governor General of Canada

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. Seeing white as black, and black as white further reveals the structures that supported the tree and life itself. The “group” images suggest the delicate balance of this precious life form so vulnerable to the whims of humankinds endless thirst

We came to this photographic project with some degree of guilt and even regret. At the behest of our town, with a building permit in the offing, we removed an outcropping of “non-native” redwood trees. The portraits of trees “cut short” is our tribute to the four sturdy, carbon reducing, one time inhabitants of our property.

About Ellen Konar & Steve Goldband

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.

Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture 2023

Posted on July 5, 2023

The Griffin Museum is thrilled to partner with Maine Media Workshops to present the 2023 Arnold Newman Prize winner Craig Easton, and finalists Dylan Hausthor, Takako Kido and Nziyah Oyo. The Arnold Newman Prize for New Directions in Photographic Portraiture is a $20,000 prize awarded annually to a photographer whose work demonstrates a compelling new vision in photographic portraiture. The Prize is generously funded by the Arnold & Augusta Newman Foundation and proudly administered by Maine Media Workshops + College.

The Griffin highlights and celebrates the winner and finalists of the Newman Prize with an exhibition at the museum in Winchester. The finalists are also part of an online exhibition on the Griffin’s website. You can see all the finalists here.

Thank you to the jurors of this years prize – Sarah Leen, Caleb Cain Marcus & 2022 winner Lisa Elmaleh.

Winner – Arnold Newman Prize

Craig Easton – Bank Top

© Craig Easton,
from the series ‘BANK TOP’

Craig Easton’s work is deeply rooted in the documentary tradition. He shoots long-term documentary projects exploring issues around social policy, identity, culture and community. Known for his intimate portraits and expansive landscape, his work regularly combines these elements with reportage approaches to storytelling, often working collaboratively with others to incorporate words, pictures and audio in a research-based practice that weaves a narrative between contemporary experience and history.

In 2021, Easton was awarded the prestigious title of Photographer of the Year at the SONY World Photography Awards and in 2022 was recognised with an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.

He has published three monographs – Thatcher’s Children, GOST Books, 2023; Bank Top, GOST Books, 2022 and Fisherwomen, Ten O’Clock Books, 2020.

A passionate believer in working collaboratively with others, Easton conceived and led the critically acclaimed SIXTEEN project with sixteen leading photographers exploring the hopes, ambitions and fears of sixteen-year-olds all around the UK. This Arts Council funded project was exhibited in over 20 exhibitions throughout 2019/2020 culminating in three simultaneous shows in London.

Easton is a regular visiting lecturer at universities and runs workshops both in the UK and internationally.

His prints are widely collected by private individuals & corporations and are held in important museum collections and archives including the FC Barcelona collection, the St. Andrews University Special Collections, Hull Maritime Museum and Salford University Art Collection.

In addition to his personal documentary and art projects, he continues to shoot for editorial & advertising clients worldwide. Advertising and commercial clients include: The National Health Service, Visit Britain, Land Rover, Heathrow Airport, Wagamama, Mazda, John Lewis etc.

Finalists

Dylan Hausthor – “What the Rain Might Bring”

Dylan Hausthor is an artist based on the coast of Maine. They received their BFA from Maine College of Art and MFA from Yale School of Art. They were a 2019 recipient of a Nancy Graves fellowship for visual artists, runner-up for the Aperture Portfolio Prize, nominated for Prix Pictet 2021, a W. Eugene Smith Grant finalist, 2021 Hariban Award Honorable Mention, 2021 Penumbra Foundation resident, 2023 Light Work resident, and the winner of Burn Magazine’s Emerging Photographer’s Fund. Their work has been shown nationally and internationally, and they have three books in the permanent collection at MoMA. They are currently a 2022-2023 Lunder Fellow at Colby College. They work teaching ghost hunting, ritual, photography, and mushroom foraging. To write this biography, Dylan contacted a forensic medium, who suggested that they “seemed like someone who was passionate in the things they believed in and who hides messages in what they have to say”.

Takako Kido – “Skinship”

Born in Kochi, Japan in 1970. She received a B.A. in Economics from Soka University in Tokyo in 1993. After graduating from the International Center of Photography’s full-time General Studies program in 2003, she remained in New York working as a black and white printer and retoucher while also exhibiting and publishing her own work. She returned to Japan in 2008 and currently lives in Kochi Prefecture. She presents her work in solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and internationally. Kido has published a photography book, “The Unseen” in 2021.

Nzingah Oyo – “Of 30 Siblings”

Nzingah Oyo is an American-born, Brooklyn-based visual artist, photographer, and curator. For over two decades, she has created images that celebrate and examine cultural tensions/blends of Islam, American and African cultures. She received an MFA in Photography from Temple University and a BFA from SUNY Purchase. She has taught photography at Temple University and held the role of Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida. She is a Fulbright scholar and a recipient of the Light Work Artist in Residence program. Oyo has received several Brooklyn Arts Council grants, the Lilly Auchincloss Foundation Award of Excellence in Photography, The Urban Arts Initiative grant in Photography, and awarded a New York Foundation of Arts grant in Photography. She was recently selected for the New York Times Photo Review 2023. Her work has been exhibited in both solo and group shows internationally and nationally. Oyo is currently a freelance photographer, adjunct faculty at The School of Visual Arts, and teaching artist for the Brooklyn Arts Council.

Leaving their Mark: Studio Practice

Posted on June 15, 2023

Creativity takes many forms. Performing artists use their bodies, writers elucidate thoughts and put them on paper, and visual artists take their tools to a blank canvas or light sensitive paper. Artists, passionate about their craft are compelled to create exposing the invisible and engaging us in thought, emotion and narrative. We celebrate the tools artists surround themselves with as we create a studio visit through the works of two photographic artists, Chris Rauschenberg and Meggan Gould.

The intimacy of the studio and beautiful chaos of making is a visual feast. Chris Rauschenberg’s series Studio Views fills the gallery with color and creativity. These large scale composites engage us in the details and connection to the art practice of Rauschenberg’s friends and colleagues. Meggan Gould explores the darkrooms of fellow photographers, exposing the tools of the medium used in darkness.

About Chris Rauschenberg

Christopher Rauschenberg was born in New York in 1951, has practiced photographic art since 1957, and has a B.A. in photography from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

He has had 127 solo shows in eight countries on three continents. His work has also been featured in group shows in six more countries. Available monographs of his work include three books, twenty print-on-demand books and a deck of cards.

His work is held in the collections of 13 major museums.

In 1995, he organized a group of a dozen artists who joined him in a nine year long systematic photographic exploration and documentation of the city of Portland. (PortlandGridProject.com) His second group of a dozen artists completed a second nine year re-exploration and round four is now in progress.

In 1997 and 1998, he took three trips to Paris and rephotographed 500 of the images made of that city by Eugene Atget between 1890 and 1927. (LensCulture interview)

He is a co-founder and past president of Photolucida (a Portland photography festival formerly called Photo Americas). He is a co-founder, co-curator and Board Chairman of Blue Sky Gallery where, over the last 48 years, he has co-curated and co-produced 1024 exhibitions. He is a co-founder and current member of the co-op Nine Gallery. He’s edited and produced around 200 art and photography publications. In 2003, he was the Bonnie Bronson Fellow.

About Meggan Gould

Meggan Gould lives and works in the mountains outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she is a Professor of Art at the University of New Mexico. She received an MFA from the University of Massachusetts – Dartmouth, and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work has been exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, and is included in many private and corporate collections, as well as public collections including the DeCordova Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Art, Light Work, and the University of New Mexico Art Museum. Her multifaceted practice uses photography, writing, drawing, sculpture, and installation in an open-ended dissection of vision and photographic tools.

Wig Heavier Than a Boot

Posted on June 7, 2023

Wig Heavier Than a Boot brings together photography and video by David Johnson and poetry by Philip Matthews. As we reveal Petal—a persona as whom Philip writes, and whom David photographs—the project crosses art-making rituals with isolated performances in domestic spaces and pastoral landscapes. Taken together, the images and poems reveal surprising relationships between character, observer, and author. The photographs provide one record of Petal and Philip’s personalities, blurring art-historical feminine / masculine postures and gestures. The poems provide another which elaborates upon the lived experience of performing or, sometimes, obscuring or protecting the self from being seen. Thus, a continuous exchange between photographer and two subjects in one body reflects the complications of power and gender expression through the history of photography.

About the Collaborators

David Johnson is an artist, educator, and curator based in Conway, SC. He received an MFA in Visual Art from Washington University in St. Louis in 2007 and earned his BFA in Studio Art with an emphasis in Photography from Texas Christian University. In 2011, David was awarded the Great Rivers Visual Arts Award from the Gateway Foundation. This biennial award culminated with his 2012 exhibition institutional etiquette and strange overtones at the Contemporary Art Museum in Saint Louis. Wig Heavier Than a Boot, a collaborative project with poet Philip Matthews, was published by Kris Graves Projects in 2019 and was featured at the Fotofest Biennial 2020 in Houston. The University of Texas Press published Johnson’s second book It Can Be This Way Always: Images from the Kerrville Folk Festival in March of 2021.

Art Museum Saint Louis, Mildred Lane Kemper Museum, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, National Building Museum in Washington D.C. and Rathaus in Stuttgart, Germany. His work can be found in the collection at The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. Don’t Take Pictures, the Humble Arts Foundation, Lenscratch, Photo-emphasis and Fraction Magazine have featured his work online. David has curated exhibitions for Center of Creative Arts, Paul Artspace and the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum in St Louis. Currently, Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Coastal Carolina University.

Philip Matthews is a poet from eastern North Carolina. He is the author of Witch (Alice James Books, 2020) and Wig Heavier Than A Boot (Kris Graves Projects, 2019), a collaboration with photographer David Johnson. Anchored by site-specific meditation and performance, his practice of the past decade has investigated spiritual, queer power, questions of home and ecological shift. He is curious about what happens next.

Philip is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Peaked Hill Trust and Hemera Foundation. He has taught at Washington University in St. Louis and Kansas City Art Institute, and from 2013-16 he organized public programs at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, emphasizing artist-driven thinking, cross-disciplinary collaboration and community-directed action.
In two 6-month phases over the past three years, he returned to North Carolina to de-hoard his grandmother’s home and repair the physical and energetic infrastructures of a shared family place. This collaborative work with his mother has laid ground for new writing to take root.

He currently directs programs at Wormfarm Institute, a nonprofit in Sauk County, Wisconsin dedicated to integrating culture and agriculture across the rural-urban continuum. He holds an MFA Writing from Washington University in St. Louis and BA English from Tulane University.

The Other Stories

Posted on June 4, 2023

About Cody Bratt

Cody Bratt (b. 1982) is a San Francisco-born and based artist. His father, a photoengraver, and his mother, a multimedia artist, inspired his love of photography and book making, in particular. He holds a BA in Rhetoric with a formal concentration in Narrative and Image from the University of California, Berkeley (2005). Shying away from a literal approach, Cody’s photography employs primarily non-linear emotional or psychological approaches to exploring subjects and concepts. Unreliable memories, displacement, loss and coming of age feature centrally in Cody’s work.

He has exhibited internationally at Athens Photo Festival, Berlin Art Week, Month of Photography Los Angeles, Griffin Museum of Photography, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, ICP Museum, Brighton Photo Fringe, Filter Photo Festival amongst others. Cody is a 2016 LensCulture Emerging 50 Talent, 2018 PDN 30 nominee and 2019 Review Santa Fe attendee. His most recent series, THE OTHER STORIES, was honored with a 2020 CENTER Awards Director’s Choice Award and a 2020 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 distinction. Cody’s first monograph, LOVE WE LEAVE BEHIND, debuted by Fraction Editions in 2018. That series was awarded a 2018 Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 distinction, named as a finalist for the 2016 Duke University CDS/Honickman First Book Prize and had images selected and published as winners in American Photography 34 (2018).

His work is in public and private collections in several states across the US, as well as Europe. Cody’s work has been published worldwide in print and online venues including PDN, LENSCRATCH, LensCulture, Lomography Magazine, iGNANT, Gente Di Fotografia, Blur Magazine, Aint-Bad, and Float Magazine amongst others.

Ville Kansanen | Arid Harbingers

Posted on June 1, 2023

A series of site-specific installations and photography by Finnish artist Ville Kansanen creates windows into the fragility of our planet’s aquatic resources. Through his work he creates a mythical connection to the demise of Earth’s bodies of water and the devastating effects of saltwater intrusion.

There are two outdoor installations: ‘Mojave Portals’ offers glimpses of desertification as arid fragments of the Mojave Desert. Tiles of desert earth and rocks are linked together, extending from inside the museum onto the surface of Judkins Pond. ‘Salting the Earth’ is a 24-foot-long mosaic of earthen tiles representing soil salinization. The tiles create a visual gradient out of local soil, calcium, limestone, and sand from the Mojave Desert.

Within the museum, a series of photographs titled ‘Airut (Harbinger)’ captures a makeshift tripod suspending an elongated stone, utilized as a mystical instrument for measuring water levels. It is transported to five lakes at succeeding stages of life, creating a solemn procession of the gradual death of lakes.

In totality, Ville Kansanen’s work encourages viewers to contemplate on the fragility and impermanence of water; and the arid forces that lead all landscapes to their unavoidable terminus – the desert.

MOJAVE PORTALS

‘Mojave Portals’ is a mythical representation of the eventual depletion and demise of Earth’s bodies of water. By employing the concept of portals, it visually transports viewers to a time when all bodies of water have dwindled and disappeared. Small tiles of rocks and desert sand are integrated into the surrounding landscape and linked together. They extend from inside the museum out onto the surface of Judkins Pond in the form of earthen rafts. These “portals” subvert our sense of time and place by projecting into the future and the faraway Mojave Desert simultaneously.

SALTING THE EARTH

‘Salting the Earth’ is a simulacrum of the effects of saltwater intrusion on the Eastern Seaboard. A 24-foot mosaic of earthen tiles creates a visual gradient out of local soil, calcium, limestone, and sand from the Mojave Desert. This simulation of soil salinization visualizes the devastating process of desertification and points to the inevitable future of Judkins Pond – and all bodies of water.

AIRUT (Harbinger)

‘Airut (Harbinger)’ portrays the gradual death of lakes in a solemn procession. In a series of five photographs, an installation takes shape by echoing primitive well boring. A makeshift tripod suspending an elongated stone is seen as a mystical instrument for measuring water levels. As the rock is submerged in five different lakes in succeeding stages of life, it transforms into an aniconic object that forebodes rather than measures.

About Ville Kansanen

Ville Kansanen (b.1984) is a Finnish multidisciplinary artist based in California. He works with photography, video, installation- and land art.

His work has been featured in several print- and online publications such as American Photo Magazine, GUP Magazine, SFAQ and Diffusion Magazine. Ville’s awards include a Lucie Award and IPA Fine Art Photographer of the Year. His first monograph was released by Datz Press in 2022. He has exhibited internationally with non-profit and private galleries.

Ville Kansanen is a 2023 Cummings Fellow, and we are grateful to the Cummings Foundation for their support of the Griffin Museum and the artists they exhibit.

Arid Harbingers has also received financial support from the Mass Cultural Council, Winchester Cultural District and Winchester Cultural Council

Dawn Watson | Conjuring Alchemy

Posted on May 31, 2023

I am a seeker. My curiosity drives discovery. My photographs are found through exploration, wandering with my intuition, guided by a sense of play, discovering my source material. I blend unconnected images of the natural elements that are at the core of the ancient art and practice of Alchemy: fire, water, air, and earth, to create a fifth element. I seek a new, a never before.

Transfiguration is a process, an evolution that requires mess and mistakes, misdirection and misinterpretation. It leads to unknown or unimagined manifestations. Is this manifestation the fifth element, or am I?

My photographic work is performative. It is an energetic, kinetic alchemy, a collaboration between physical material and an intuitive conversation with a vibrant presence to engage and provoke.

These pieces explore the elemental, the body, the suspension of belief, forces of nature, higher realms, and the world of symbolic meaning. I lean into light and shadow. I am open to the entire spectrum of experience, while remaining grounded. I hold in my heart both the dark and the light. The vivid hues of color allow me to develop a more dynamic translation of the world beyond the world.

I am drawn to our primal sensibilities, the suspension of belief, forces of nature, higher realms, and the symbolic, in all things.

In Conjuring: Alchemy, I pull from work both old and new, layering one over the other, top over bottom over top, watching and waiting with bated breath for creation to reveal itself.

About the Artist –

After a successful career as a professional dancer/choreographer, Dawn Watson shifted her artistic practice to fine art photography, finding affinity in the visual storytelling offered by both live performance and the photographic image. Watson’s photographic renderings continue to explore transformation through form, space, light, movement and storytelling, as she did as a performer.

Watson’s solo exhibitions include the Griffin Museum of Photography and The Los Angeles Center for Photography. Her work has been seen in juried exhibitions in the United States and Europe, including the Center for Fine Art Photography, Davis-Orton Gallery, Tilt Gallery, Tang Teaching Museum. Features online and in print include amongst others Diffusion X Magazine, Elizabeth Avedon Journal, Lenscratch, SXSE Magazine and What Will You Remember. Her work is held in private collections and is on permanent display at The Lodge at Woodloch.

Watson graduated with Honors in Dance from Skidmore College and has studied photography at ICP, Maine Media and Santa Fe Workshops among others. She was a member of Find Your Vision/Sandi Haber Fifield critique workshop from 2012-2022. Based in Hastings on Hudson, NY, Watson continues her long association as board member of regional environmental organization Scenic Hudson.

Janice Koskey | Illuminating the Archive

Posted on May 26, 2023

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@ Arthur Griffin

Illuminating the archives of Arthur Griffin

I was delighted to have been invited by Crista Dix to study the archives of Arthur Griffin, choose works from among his nautical photographs, and match them to my own.

To begin this process, I repeatedly scrolled through Mr Griffin’s varied array of photographs of beach, wharf, and waterfront. As I perused these images, certain ones would jump out at me as if there were some thing familiar about them that connected his vision to mine.

One image that I was particularly drawn to was a young child looking out over the beach from the shore. It reminded me of my childhood years spent on Lynn beach and how much the ocean is a part of me. As it turned out, that image was made by Arthur’s wife, Claire Griffin. I feel that it holds the heart of a mother within it.

Once I had chosen my six images, I kept each one in mind while I took a stroll through my own shoreline archives. From there it was easy to zero in on one or two of my images that seemed to dance with theirs. I truly enjoyed comparing and contrasting my subtle and vibrant-colored, contemporary digital photos with the monochromatic photos made in the dark room of the past.

During this process I learned that though cameras and methods of development may have changed, each photograph produced then and now contains beneath the surface a deep love and appreciation for the ocean as well as the moods and gestures of the vessels and humans depicted nearby. These feelings will be held permanently in the souls of the photographers as well as within each photograph we have made.

I hope you enjoy the connections that link past and present in this exhibit and share our gratitude for Arthur Griffin, founder of the Griffin Museum of Photography.

About Janice Koskey

Janice Koskey has lived a lifetime with a camera close at hand. She was given her first Brownie as a child, worked in a dark room in college, and during her long career in the Lynn Public Schools utilized photography in her classroom before taking up digital photography upon her retirement in 2008. More recently she has focused her study on what lies behind the photograph, the connection between individuals and their art.

Though she has attended dozens of photographic workshops and classes, Janice’s favorite source of learning and encouragement comes from the Greater Lynn Photographic Association where she received a NECCC service award has led an Artistic Vision group.

Janice has published articles in the Journal of the Photographic Society of America on contemplative and travel photography and through PSA she makes presentations in person locally and via Zoom around the country and the world.

As a member of the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Galleries at Lynn Arts, Marblehead Arts Association, and Rockport Arts Association and Museum, Janice exhibits her work regularly, has won various awards, and her photographs have found their place in many comfortable homes.

Our Town 2023

Posted on May 18, 2023

The Griffin is celebrating the beauty of Winchester in Summer of 2023.

In the insightful “Preface” for a collection of his Three Plays, renowned playwright Thornton Wilder advocated for finding “a value above all price for the smallest events in our daily life.” Inspired by the profound themes explored in Wilder’s play of the same title, the Griffin Museum of Photography is thrilled to present, Our Town, a public art installation and community exhibition. Echoing Wilder’s poignant reflection on beauty found in the simple places, we invited the residents of Winchester to discover the extraordinary moments within the ordinary spaces we call home.

Arthur Griffin, *Winchester*, [ca. 1935–1955]

Combining landscapes, still-lifes, portraiture, and more, Our Town invites you to witness individual moments woven into a broader community narrative of Winchester.

The photographers included in the exhibition are (in alphabetical order)

Alex Li, Amanda Cobbold, Amy Murgatroyd, Andrea Zampitella, Bill Chapman, Christine Fratto, Danielle Marquardt, Deborah Johnson, Frank Tadley, Hope Pashos, Janice Eyden, Katalina Simon, Mario Moreira, Mark Flannery, Michael Burka, Patty Mihelich and Thomas Hardjono.

Our Town is made possible by the generous support of our sponsors: the The Winchester Cultural District, Winchester Cultural Council and the En Ka Society.