Griffin Gallery

On October 11, 2017, the Griffin Museum opens with “Gray Matters,” an exhibition of photographs by Marina Font, Francie Bishop Good, Sandra Klein, J. Fredric May, Liz Steketee and Colleen Woolpert. This exhibition is shown under the overarching title called “Gray Matters” and opens during FlashPoint Boston. Six solo exhibits will be featured in the Main Gallery, Atelier Gallery and the Griffin Gallery of the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA.

J. Fredric May, in the Atelier Gallery at the Griffin, will exhibit “Apparition: Postcards from Eye See You” and Liz Steketee, will exhibit “Sewn” in the Griffin Gallery. Francie Bishop Good exhibits “Comus,” Marina Font’s exhibit is called “Mental Maps, Colleen Woolpert exhibits pieces from her series “Persistence of Vision” and Sandra Klein exhibits photographs from her “Noisy Brain” series.

“Gray Matters” will showcase at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA from October 11 – December 3, 2017. An opening reception takes place on Wednesday, October 11, 2017, 7 – 8:30 p.m. There will be a gallery walk with the artists at 5:45 PM on October 11, 2017.  In SoWa Boston for FlashPoint Boston through January three 48″x48″ sidewalk color vinyls will be on view featuring Francie Bishop Good, Sandra Klein and Marina Font photographs.

“Assembling the “Gray Matters” exhibition came out of a personal realization that none of us escape the aging process,” says Paula Tognarelli, executive director of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “As an aging female and as the daughter of a parent with dementia, I’ve had first hand experience of how our culture regards its elderly. I wanted an exhibition that started conversations on the value of elders coupled with a focus on how the brain influences a quality of life. Gray matter includes the regions of the brain that are the nuts and bolts of muscle control, memory, speech, perception, hearing and emotions.”

In “Noisy Brain,” Sandra Klein examines her 21^st century brain that is constantly analyzing the world around her. She also hopes to understand the universal mind. She says, “As I watch my mother experience dementia, I am stunned by the changes in the aging brain.  In creating a narrative that focuses on layers of thinking, I ponder the noises that are yet to come.”

Sandra Klein was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and received a BFA from Tyler School of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA and an MA in printmaking from San Diego State University. After working as a teacher, her art focus moved from printmaking into mixed media and fine art photography. Her practice involves conceptual imagery that explores memory and personal narratives. Her layered, often three dimensional photographs have been shown across the United States in venues such as the Center of Fine Art Photography in Colorado, Candela Gallery in Virginia, A Smith Gallery in Texas, Tilt Gallery in Arizona, Southeast Center of Photography in North Carolina, and Building Bridges, Arena 1 Gallery and the Los Angeles Center of Photography in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured on Lenscratch, A Photo Editor, Musee Magazine, What Will You Remember, and in Diffusion magazine, and is held in public collections. She will be in a four-person show at the California Museum of Art, Thousand Oaks in September 2017. She lives and works in Los Angeles.

Marina Font couples exploration of the human mind with female identity. Using metaphoric means she considers the biologic, psychological and social aspects of the female body and the intersections of these planes. She says, “With this series, I aim to approach what lies beyond control and reason, exploring, through the act of drawing with thread, embroidery, fabric and appropriated crochet pieces onto the photographic surface, the intricate mysteries of the psyche. Through these works I intend to shed imaginary light on the female experience in order to build idealized and fantastical connections to the forces of the unconscious.”

Born and raised in Argentina, Marina Font studied design at the Escuela de Artes Visuales Martin Malharro, Mar del Plata, Argentina. In the summer of 1998 she studied photography at Speos Ecole de la Photogrphie in Paris, followed by completing her MFA in Photography at Barry University, Miami in 2009. For the past ten years she’s has been working on photo-based works that explore issues of identity, gender, territory, language and the forces of the unconscious. Her work is held in several collections including the MDC Museum of Art + Design, Miami, The Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, The Boca Raton Museum of Art, The Girls’ Club Collection, Fort Lauderdale, The Bunnen Collection, Atlanta, FoLA, Fototeca Latinoamericana de Fotografia, Buenos Aires, Argentina and various important private collections around the world.

She has exhibited in numerous one-person and group shows in galleries, cultural institutions and museums including The Boca Raton Museum of Art (with RPM Projects), The Consulate General of Argentina in New York, The Deering Estate at Cutler, Miami The Appleton Museum, The Museum of Florida Art, The Nova South Eastern University, The Baker Museum, The Art Center South Florida and the Andy Gato Gallery at Barry University to name a few. She just had her fourth solo show at the Dina Mitrani Gallery, Miami. She lives and works in Miami Beach, Florida since 1997 and is represented by the Dina Mitrani Gallery.

Francie Bishop Good uses “a staccato of media” to create “a hybrid form of portraiture.” She begins with images from her mother’s and her yearbooks. She and her mother went to the same high school in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The artist says, “I cross-pollinate painting, photography, drawing, and collage with digital layering. The source material of photographs from yearbooks is something very personal yet universal. I am transforming the imagined. “Comus” was and still is the title of the yearbooks from Allentown High School.”

Born in Bethlehem, PA, Good lives and works in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US, Europe and Latin America and is included in public and private collections in the US. Her work has appeared in publications, including The Miami Herald, Art in America, and ARTnews, among others. She is represented by David Castillo Gallery in Miami, FL. Francie Bishop Good did her undergraduate work at Philadelphia College of Art, received her BFA at the University of Boulder and her Masters at Florida Atlantic College.

In 2012 J. Fredric May experienced an aortic aneurysm. His sight was irreversibly altered losing 46% of his vision rendering him legally blind. His limited vision did not stop him from producing artwork. Independent curator J. Sybylla Smith says that May’s photographs are “a hybrid of analog and digital processes that are the result of his explorations.” Additionally she says, “May begins with vintage portraits which he scans and puts through data corruption software. He then creates layered composites and prints these as cyanotypes. He bleaches and tones his cyanotypes with a mixture of photo chemicals and tea. Ultimately, he digitizes the altered cyanotypes and creates an archival pigment print.”

Fredric May is a former photojournalist and filmmaker who has traveled all over the world, telling visual stories with a signature style of bold color and confrontational composition. He resides in Palm Springs, CA with his wife.

Liz Steketee uses family photographs to speak on identity and truth telling. She deconstructs, cuts and rebuilds photographs into personas with newly conceived histories, narratives and characteristics. Memories and truth become distorted with her use of threads, everyday moments from her life, photomontage and juxtaposition. She says of her work, “I break the rules of traditional photography by mixing elements and materials that do not necessarily belong together. I allow subjects to express emotions or information long repressed, causing a shift in expectations. Finally, I explore the traditions of sewing and photography colliding and establishing new ground. This work carries subtexts for me such as, the notion of truth in photography, the connection between photographs and memories, and the visual history and impact of the tradition of portraiture.”

A resident of San Francisco, Stekette lives with her husband and two children. She maintains her own art practice and teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute where she graduated with an MFA and received the prestigious John Collier Award. In 2011, Nazraeli Press published Steketee’s work in a One Picture Book, Dystopia.

Colleen Woolpert’s “Persistence of Vision” includes photography, video, and interactive objects and installations that explore how we visualize the unseen and navigate the unknown. The Griffin Museum chose to highlight three artworks from this series.

Colleen Woolpert is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, photo educator, and stereograph specialist based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She creates still and moving images as well as interactive objects and installations that explore the nuances of vision—from visual perception itself to abstract concepts like imagination, wonder, and doubt.

Recipient of both an Individual Artist Grant and a Community Arts Grant from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), other recognition includes Juror’s Selection from Darren Ching (Klomching Gallery) in Same But Different at the New York Center for Photographic Art and a Top Knots Award from Photo District News. Her work has been curated into exhibitions at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Humble Arts Foundation, Dumbo Arts Center, and Light Work, among other venues, and her editorial photographs have appeared in many publications including The New York Times, Bicycling, Martha Stewart Weddings, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Colleen received her MFA from Syracuse University and BA from Western Michigan University, where she currently teaches in the Photography and Intermedia Department.

In 2006 Gary Beeber began making documentary films of burlesque shows and accompanying side performances. His focus was on people who led unconventional lives. The films he produced led him to the Triad Theater on West 72^nd Street in Manhattan where he began to produce Gotham Burlesque and at the same time photograph the performers of the variety shows.

Beeber’s series, “Personalities,” is featured in the Griffin Gallery at the Griffin Museum of Photography from July 6 through September 1, 2017. An opening reception will take place on July 13, 2017 from 7-8:30pm. An informal gallery talk by Hamidah Glasgow will take place at 6:15 PM on July 13^th followed by a reception that is open to all. Portfolio reviews with Hamidah will take place on July 14th on a first come first served basis with a portfolio sharing to come.

In Beeber’s exhibition the viewer is introduced to Mona Marlowe a NYC trans-gender nightlife personality. Beeber says, “Mona sacrificed everything in order to become the femme fatale she always wanted to be.” He continues, “When I photographed Mona I remember how intensely the room smelled of perfume.” Other personalities in Beeber’s ensemble include Steve D., a red blooded American with a very strong point of view. Jimmy Mack is another unconventional fellow who Beeber met at a Polar Bear plunge when Mack to raise money for charity arrived in a mermaid costume. Scott Baker (The Twisted Shockmeister), Bettina May (International Burlesque Star), Shelly Watson (the Sinking Siren), Early Ross (late-night host), Mss Vee (late night entertainer), and David Slater (Collage Artist) join the other personalities on the walls of the Griffin Gallery.

Gary Beeber is an award-winning American photographer/filmmaker who has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States and Europe. Solo exhibitions include two at Generous Miracles Gallery NYC and this show (2017) at The Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester MA.  Beeber’s work has been included in juried exhibitions throughout the country. Among Fortune 500 companies who collect his work are Pfizer Pharmaceutical, Goldman Sachs and Chase Bank.

Ellen Cantor says of “Prior Pleasures” that in it she celebrates the joy of losing oneself within the pages of a favorite childhood tale especially in an age when technology replaces the tactile experience of reading a book.

Cantor’s series, “Prior Pleasures,” is featured in the Griffin Gallery at the Griffin Museum of Photography” from June 1 through July 4, 2017. An opening reception will take place on June 8, 2017 from 7 – 8:30 PM. Ellen Cantor will do a gallery talk on June 8^th at 6:15. All are welcome.

“This series explores memory and preservation of the past while ensuring the creation of a visual legacy for the next generation,” says Cantor. She adds that, “The books photographed for this series are the ones I have carried with me since childhood. My mother read them to me and, in turn, I read them to my children, carrying on a tradition of the written and spoken word.”

Ellen Cantor was born in Chicago, Illinois and lives in Southern California. She is a member of the Los Angeles Art Association, Gallery 825 and the 2015 recipient of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Fine Art. Her photographs have been exhibited in Europe, Asia and the United States and have appeared in Lenscratch.com, f-stopmagazine.com, fractionmagazine.com, rfotofolio.com and Silvershotz. In 2016, she exhibited at the Dina Mitrani Gallery, Cob Gallery’s 10 Castle Street Gallery, UK, The Los Angeles Center of Photography, Texas Photographic Society, The Vermont Center for Photography, the Berlin Foto Biennale and USC Hoyt Gallery at USC School of Medicine among others.

“In Arbor & Frost, Lee W. Bass creates photographs in nature that direct us to her intent using all of our senses,” says Paula Tognarelli executive director and curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography. “Bass offers a poet’s invitation to ponder the gestures of each captured moment, the gist of which seem to unfold in layers, ebbs and flows.”

Bass’ series,  Arbor & Frost, is featured in the Griffin Gallery at the Griffin Museum of Photography” from April 6^th through May 28^th, 2017. An opening reception will take place on Sunday, April 9^th, 2017 from 4 – 6 PM.

Bass says of her work, “I make small, intimate photographs. I am drawn to the tactile, to the subtleties of light, shadow and mood. I often am revising the same subjects over time. They become old friends who slowly reveal their secrets to me…They are reminders, of who I am, my dreams and often something that cannot be described in words.”

Photographer and printmaker Lee W Bass has worn many different hats during her lifetime. She grew up playing outside from dawn to dusk. She was a young woman of the sixties and walked acres of alfalfa looking for the five leaflet leaf.

Later she took on the roles of wife and mother, painter, and worked for the University of Minnesota in raptor rehab and as a falconer. Today she can be found walking the bluffs of the rivers of the Midwest – or striving to transfer its essence to paper. Lee W. Bass resides in Bloomington, Minnesota.

 

 

Mirrors

March 9 – March 31, 2017

Reception March 9^th 6:30 – 8:30

February 20, 2017 (Winchester, MA)__ The second install of Found in Collection: Contemporary Photography from the Danforth Art Museum Permanent Collection will be presented in two parts at the Griffin Museum of Photography. Both paintings and photographs will be exhibited, including work by John Brook, Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Julie Melton, Jesseca Ferguson, Samuel Quinn, David Prifti, Jaclyn Kain, Molly Lamb, Gail Samuelson, and Ruth Thorne-Thomsen, among others. The first install of exhibitions took place at the Griffin Museum of Photography during the month of December 2016. In Part Two Memory will be shown in the Atelier Gallery and Mirrors will be exhibited in the Griffin Gallery as part of Found in Collection: Contemporary Photography from the Danforth Art Museum Permanent Collection from March 9th through March 31st, 2017. An opening reception will take place on March 9, 2017 from 6:30-8:30pm. The will be a curator’s talk, with Roscio on March 16, 2017 at 7 PM at the Griffin Museum.

“Memory and absence wind their way through the second part of Danforth Art’s two-part exhibition Found in Collection,” writes Jessica Roscio, curator for the Danforth Art Museum.  “Imagined travel narratives, lost places, and remembered spaces are envisioned in photographs, paintings, and drawings from the late nineteenth century to today…… [and] is apparent in works throughout this exhibition,” she says. Roscio goes on to say that the works in Mirror “comment on the surreal aspects of one’s interior life, and its collision with an often fantastical and disturbing reality.   In turbulent, uncertain times, the allure of an alternate reality, or simply the belief in illusion, appeals to our need for escapism.”

Startling childhood memories and pierced family photographs have created a reference point and inspired Priya Kambli’s, new work, “Kitchen Gods.” Although, disturbed by these artifacts as an image-maker, Kambli is also drawn to the visual aesthetics and the stories each tells.

Kambli’s series, “Kitchen Gods,” are featured in the Griffin Gallery at the Griffin Museum of Photography as part of “Legacy. Migration. Memory.” from January 12th through March 5th, 2017. An opening reception will take place on January 14thth, 2017 from 7-8:30pm.

Kambli says, “My need to decipher and address my family photographs is personal. My work is rooted in my fascination with my parents—both of whom died when I was young.” She continues to explain, “In my work I labor to maintain my parents the way Indian housewives do their kitchen deities. I also strive to connect the generations, my ancestor and my children, who have separated by death and migration. ……….. I alter these photographs to modify the stories they tell.”

Kambli was born in India and at age 18 moved to the United States, where she began her artistic career. She completed her BFA degree in the University of Louisiana and continued on to receive a MFA degree in Photography from the University of Houston. She is currently and art professor at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. In 2008, PhotoLucida awarded her a book publication prize for her project “Color Falls Down“.

Priya Kambli is represented by Wallspace Gallery, Santa Barbara CA

Painting and the Dawn of Photography

Interpretations of the landscape were a significant focus of nineteenth-century American art, and reports from geological surveys across the Western territories drove the need for views of an unseen landscape. Artists such as Thomas Moran, who traveled with one of the surveys and produced monumental landscapes of the Rocky Mountains, noted a need to both precisely render what he was seeing, yet also capture the emotional impact of the view, which he termed “the atmosphere.” This line of thought was present throughout nineteenth-century landscapes, where artists sought to depict observed nature while embracing more atmospheric and tonal effects to heighten the emotional impact of the work.

Painting and photography unite in their attempt to evoke both the past and present through atmospheric effect. George Hawley Hallowell’s turn-of-the-twentieth century painted landscapes become emotionally turbulent through the artist’s use of color and pattern. Vibrant purples, pinks, and blues are juxtaposed with patches of light and dark, showing the artist’s interest in tonalism and symbolism. Decades later, the photographs of John Brook render a similar atmospheric visual effect. Brook’s color abstractions reflect his need to infuse his photographs with both a sense of design and spontaneity. His work often straddled figuration and abstraction, with an emotional tone permeating throughout.

Evoking a mood through tonal effects remains a hallmark of contemporary photography, where the sense of capturing a distant memory is made visual through deft use of light and shadow. Depictions of the landscape have always fluctuated between faithful representation and an imagined sublime. Edgar Allan Poe’s assertion that the invention of photography was “the most important, and perhaps the most extraordinary triumph of modern science,” while also deeming the accuracy of the photographic image “miraculous” and magical, underscore the mercurial nature of the medium. Danforth Art is continually building its collection in order to more fully draw connections between media, unite the historical and contemporary, and understand their shared history.